


A Surefire Failure

by Belfire



Series: Adventures of the Doppelgangers [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham (Video Games), Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Accidental overdose, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arkham Asylum, Blood and Violence, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, Jason needs hugs, Jason's running on empty, Lian is a sweetheart, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Roy is everyone's caretaker, Slade is quite strange., psychotic breaks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 70,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17518889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: Joker didn't break him. Joker shattered every piece that there was to Jason and the people around him want to fix it. They can't make it better if they can't make it go away. The torture, the rape, the beatings and the brand.... Jason's teetering dangerously close to the edge and everyone around him are walking across a minefield.





	1. The Intervention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cuthwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuthwyn/gifts).



> This is an unused chapter from the predecessor of this story that I felt would be better as a separate fic. I've got a better follow-up in mind but I just had to post this!
> 
> This is gifted to one of my favourite authors and my JayRoy inspiration, the wonderful Cuthwyn!

Jason was losing his mind trying to juggle all the sudden responsibility thrust upon him. Batman; AWOL. Nightwing; dead. Robin; lord knows. That left Oracle and the Arkham Knight but with the former abroad with the Birds of Prey, the Knight was alone in his hideout, staring at the monitors stretching before him, each one broadcasting a horrendous crime. To the corner left, a mugging, next to it, B&E. Top right, a woman being abused in a parking lot by her husband or boyfriend... And many, many more things that were mythical in their monstrosity. Jesus, he couldn't count to the number of screens showing him these things. He couldn't get to all those people on time. No way, even if he ran out now to try and if he did, which ones would he choose deserved to be rescued?

Biting his lip, holding his chin like a vice, Jason couldn't keep himself from trembling, small tremors vibrating through his bones. He didn't know if it was him being on the verge of a panic attack that caused it, or those stupid antipsychotics his psychiatrist had him taking, that's side effects meant he twitched and was shaky, slept worse than ever, his vision blurred at random intervals and his reflexes weren't as lethally sharp as he'd toned them.

He had to get off these fucking drugs. They aren't helping. They aren't helping. They aren't  _fucking_  helping.

His scalp was burning, pain spiking and he realised the cause was his fist pulling out strands that looking down at, were reddening to natural colouration because  _shit_ , he couldn't remember the last time he fucking dyed it. Stressed. He was fucking  _stressed_  out of his damn skull and no one was helping him. He wasn't Batman and he wasn't Nightwing - it  _wasn't_  his job to protect Gotham and keep the peace. He tried and  _once_  he respected the Bat method.  _One_  night of no gun violence and he went straight back to killing next sunset. It was easier and with everything suddenly on his shoulders, slipping between his fingers, he  _needed_  it to be easier any way he could make it. 

Jason paced and he fumbled with his hands for a time period that he couldn't disclose, in his mind, alternating between grabbing his gear and doing what he could to collapsing into a ball and shivering in a corner. It was already hard to handle the reigns before Tim flew the nest in search of Bruce, but now everything was a thousand fucking times more difficult. The thoughtless brat didn't even leave a contingency list of people who he could call on when crime waves hit Gotham's shore like this. There'd been an 88% increase in violent crime in the past three months; cops were being slaughtered and their bodies left in the streets for days when no one was suicidal enough to brave the bad parts of the city and retrieve them. 

This was too fucking much! Batman and Robin - they just  _abandoned_  Gotham and expected him to carry on both their roles by himself when he couldn't even keep his thoughts in line. He was constantly struggling with his demons and the voices and now  _this._  Too time-consuming to do both at once, one of them had to give. 

And he went and he put on his suit, his helmet, holsters, all the while he was damn near hyperventilating from how fucking overwhelmed and powerless he felt. 

* * *

 

Crime Alley, a man was forcing himself onto a girl half his age against her screams and struggling; Jason got a headshot in but couldn't stay to comfort the victim as he usually would, he needed to get to those gunshots he heard in the distance, from the corner of Miller's Bank. It turned out to be small time gangbangers trying to get a clout boost by stealing a couple mil. They were masks and held up rifles, about to unleash a hail of bullets at the graveyard workers when Jason got to them first. He was running when he jumped the gap between the alley they were prepping in and took them out in mid-flight, but he couldn't stop to catch his breath, not with the explosion arising from downtown, the red plume of fire rising high about the surrounding buildings.

Six hours in and it got no less hectic. Combined, his 9mm Berettas held thirty bullets in both clips; he had to reload five times that night and he was only chipping away at the chaos. Everything was dying and screaming and blowing up and he couldn't make it stop! 

Jason went through a lot of Valium to keep from having a panic attack. It wasn't the amount of killing he was doing or how much action this demanded from him. No, that was fine, he was used to it. But it was everyone _depending_ on him and all this unravelling at once, him being unable to take it all in, leading to a massive sensory overload after the next and fuck's sake, he couldn't be to all these places at once. It was physically  _impossible_. 

Jason had been running for hours and his body threatened to shut down from exhaustion if he didn't take a second to catch his breath. Begrudgingly, he did and each inhale was ragged and wheezy, throat feeling like the seams were tearing. He was dizzy and sluggish, eyesight blurring and it occurred to him these were all early warning signs that something was wrong with him.  _Fuck_. He should have focused on that, he really should have, but the sudden and menacing presence of a large man with two swords on his back, appearing beside him distracted somewhat.

Turning jerkily around to face him, Jason was slow to realise who this was in the sleek black and orange armour that's outlines looked fuzzy.

"Slade..."  That didn't sound fluid at all, more a confused drowsy drone. "What're you doing here?"

He really, really needed for this to be an extremely unlikely idle drop-in and not anything more.  

"Word is that Batman and Robin are gone and you're left to take care of their city." Slade began, voice slightly muffled by his mask while he folded those intimidating thick arms of his over his chest, shifting from leaning on one hip to the other.

"I came to see if that's true and if it is, what on god's earth's gotten into your damn head, kid?" Slade demanded without a second to basis his question. Or why he cared. 

Jason took far longer than he should have to give him an answer, but he didn't properly understand the question with how foggy his head was. Slade quickly grew impatient of waiting.

"Kid, this isn't your damn city to protect. You don't owe it anything, certainly not to this extent." Gesturing to his visibly poor state, Slade sternly said, surprising Jason by the tone of it. His arms were still crossed and his stance akin to iron;  _unmovable_. Jason felt cornered to this unknown incident. 

"Slade, what are you  _really_  doing here?" Jason made to pinch the bridge of his nose when his hand bumped into his visor and he recalled he hadn't taken his helmet off. The pressure of it was becoming more and more unbearable with a raging headache. 

"Already told you." The mercenary said back, as husky-voiced as he ever was, but something seemed different about his demeanour tonight. Yeah, he was Jason's once-upon-a-time mentor and later, his hired muscle, but that didn't explain the....  _concern_ radiating off him. He couldn't really be worried, could he? He was a merciless assassin who taught Jason how to kill a man by impaling his brain with the broken shards of his nose. He wasn't what you might call impeccably caring.

"Leave me alone, Slade," Jason said, making to move past him. "I have to get back to work." 

"Is that so?" Slade asked, didn't turn to regain eye contact while Jason brushed by him. One moment he was still as a statue, the next his hand shot out and surged around Jason's forearm, latching on roughly and yanking him back the few steps he'd gotten. Were it not for the iron grip, Jason would have fallen. 

"Get the hell  _off_  me." Jason tugged at his limb violently, trying to escape the cage of fingers but all his effort aside, he wasn't causing Slade any strain or difficulty holding on. The Arkham Knight was powerfully built but Deathstroke was genetically engineered to surpass all human limits. 

Advantage wasn't on Jason's side.

Slade didn't speak or let him go, fingertips pressed into the underside of Jason's wrist. For ten or so seconds, he kept them there, before he commented,

"Your pulse is too low." He wasn't lacking for severity; he grabbed Jason near the jaw, thrust his fingers under the helmet, unlocked it and dragged it over his head. The metallic clatter of it hitting the roof somewhere further off when Slade threw it aside sounded way too loud, actually making Jason flinch. 

His vision was sluggish to catch up to Slade capturing his face in his one massive hand, turning slowly in an examination. It hurt a little but Jason couldn't protest anymore, he was too tired and on top of that, his mouth was incredibly dry, no amount of saliva seemed enough to moisturise. It occurred to him that the mercenary was looking at his pupils that were overly sensitive to light. 

"What drugs did you take?" Slade sighed on the last letter of that question, he was actually coming off as disappointed over irritated. Jason blinked slowly and saw reason to neither lie or tell him the truth.

But he  _did_  tell him, he wasn't so into what he was realising was an overdose to not know that was probably for the best.

"J... just some Valium." 

"How much?" 

It took a second or two to think back before Jason held up four fingers then rethought, shook his head, and changed it to five. He could sense the judgement to his poor decision making coming off the older man in waves.

"How many milligrams is each pill?"

Jason shrugged his shoulders though barely had enough energy for the small movement.

"Don't remember." If he put more towards it, he might recall the exact dosage but his brain burned just to think the bare minimum. Slade didn't dignify his response with one, not while he was busy rummaging excessively roughly through the compartments and pouches of Jason's belt. He found and removed  _two_  bottles of different pills, shoving them into Jason's face like he didn't know they were there. His single eye narrowing, Slade read the backs of them before he launched into a lecture.

"Fifty milligrams of benzodiazepine on its own can be fatal, but you  _combined_  that with antipsychotics?  _Jesus Christ_ , kid, this is enough to stop your damn heart." Slade grumbled some words of disapproval to himself after that and before Jason could stop him, he was swept off his feet, literally. Slade had no trouble in picking him up into those arms of eternal intimidation, despite his reanimated protesting.

" _Slade_  - put me down!" Jason ordered him, flailing to get free but he was utterly powerless against the other, who also didn't care for what he wanted. He started walking.

" _Slade..._ " Jason continued whining, hit him in the chest with open hands and tried kicking him. Whatever few strikes met their marks bounced harmlessly off Slade.

"You're not helping yourself," Slade remarked, unamused by Jason's efforts. He was right, of course, and knowing he couldn't actually escape, Jason slumped miserably against Slade, burying half his face in him, so hypersensitive that he took too close analysis of the older man's breathing; steady despite currently carrying all his body weight.

One of them sighed deeply.

"I didn't mean it, y'know." Barely audible, Jason murmured after a little while passed, actually happy for not having to walk now, not with how heavy his head was. Every jolt, no matter how small, threatened to twist half-digested food up his throat. He hardly cared how emasculating this was anymore.

"I know, kid." Slade's voice sounded far away and Jason was getting drowsier by the second.

"But don't do something this stupid again. I fucking taught you better."

* * *

 

Slade dropped Jason onto the couch of a place he didn't recognise. Which one of them did this safehouse belong to? He didn't care. He was too sick to. Jason rolled onto his side with a feeble groan, stomach turning and bile burning up his throat. He heard Slade's heavy footsteps heading away and closed his eyes for just one second, but it must have been longer than that because the next thing he knows is that a boorish hand slotted behind his neck and propped him up.

"Drink this," Slade grunted about the moment a glass clinked against Jason's teeth, a quick spike of pain flashing through his skull but it passed quickly. He didn't want any water or whatever was being offered and tried pushing it away. The dull points of Slade's fingers burrowed bruises around his spine and Jason took it as hint enough to obey. Slade may be helping but he didn't have to do it gently. Parting his jaws for him, Slade tipped the glass up and filled Jason's mouth with a rush of cool liquid faster than he could gulp it down. He tried to drink it all but ended up choking, streams spilling from the corners of his mouth and down his chin, his neck, then his chest.

Slade let him sit up when he spluttered but his hand didn't leave Jason's back. His former second and mentor, Slade was among the handful of living people who knew the extent of what Arkham and the Joker put him through. Compassion wasn't Deathstroke's strong suit but every now and again, he had crumbs of something close to it for Jason. Every now and again.

"Take these." When he could breathe again, Slade gave him three white pills and trusting him, Jason took them dry, tipping his head back and painfully swallowed. He didn't know what they were but Slade wouldn't have carried him here if he wanted to kill him.

Jason lay back down, against the hard couch that felt like a snuggly cloud to his discomfort. He shifted and tried to find the least painful position to rest, his body screaming for sleep so loud that the notion of the city needing him fell into background static.

Slade stayed kneeling beside him and Jason couldn't pinpoint what he was looking at when it was seemingly all of him.

".... Slade?" Jason said quietly but was surprised by how loud it sounded. It didn't look like Slade noticed so maybe it was only in his head.

"Mhm, kid?" Slade looked to him from whatever had been holding his attention before.

"I can't do this."  _This_? Managing Gotham and himself at once. He almost fucking killed himself accidentally with prescription drugs. If that wasn't a sign to handle his priorities than he didn't know what was.

"Obviously." Slade deadpanned. Jason had been expecting something else from him but that was in character.

"What do I do?" Jason asked because he had literally no one else to turn to. When Deathstroke was your sole shoulder to whine on, you needed to reassess some things. But Slade, for all his negative qualities and questionable methods, he'd never steered Jason wrong.

"You get yourself together, then work on this damn city. Can't save anyone when you're fucked in the head."

That seemed so logical it should have been obvious. Jason was well versed in how he was inept to help anyone right now, and running around Gotham all night really wasn't something he wanted to do, but then....

"If I don't, who will?"

"Well, since you're apparently on the side of the angels again-"

"I'm  _not_." Truth be told, Jason didn't know what he was but it wasn't a goodie-goodie like his damn counterpart.

"- Call your precious Justice League to lend a hand." Slade went on, unphased by the interruptions. As a father, he wasn't deterred easily by disruptions when trying to get a point across.

"You think they will?" Jason hadn't thought of that. Not once.

"Find out, kid. And stop asking questions now." Slade told him when rising, his sudden movement alarming Jason, his hand shooting to hover above the gun on his hip. Slade cocked a white brow with an unamused scoff.

" _Seriously_? If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

That was by, all intents and purposes, true to the letter and Jason relaxed his position again. Caution, however, never hurt anyone. That was something life's many merciless lessons had engraved into him.

"Then where are you going?"

" _Nowhere_. Get some sleep while I'm out."

Brows furrowed, Jason watched him go, pulling his balaclava over his head as he did. Whatever those pills were that Slade gave him, they slowly crept into play and lessened the colossal cloud of discomfort and pain floating above him, but he still didn't feel amazing and that order Slade gave him was tempting.

Jason raked his hand through his hair, sighing, and tried finding the least unpleasant way to lay in the hopes of catching some Zs. Hopefully, Slade doesn't destroy anything while he was out of commission.

* * *

 

Once Jason woke up, hours later, he had a good mind to go straight back to sleep, fuck what the time might be or how far into the dawn the day had progressed. He just. Wanted. To  _sleep_. Yesterday's sickness hadn't fully passed, and that's because it wasn't simple  _sickness_ , but an accidental OD. He could have killed himself. With a groan, he realised he was becoming his fucking parents.  _Yay_.

Jason rolled over onto his middle and tried ignoring the raging headache and his dry throat. His stomach was in knots,  tightening and making him sick. He's aware he needs to drink something but getting up felt like too much of an ask. He'd rather wither away and die than rise.

Jason tried to sleep more but his brain wouldn't allow it, near forcefully clearing the fogginess and involuntarily, he began wondering where Slade was.... And that Slade had come to his rescue last night. With a clearer head, that was both strange and extremely out of character for him. Slade had never approved of Jason sleeping with his daughter, Rose but he presumed it may have something to do with her. She had her dad wrapped around her finger. 

He was proven correct when the door opened and with confident strides, in came a tall muscular girl with an eyepatch, snowy hair cascading down her shoulders and tits Jason didn't believe were real. She pursed her lips, crystalline blue eye narrowing on him and he stared back lethargically, face half buried in the couch.

" _Jesus_ ," Rose finally said. "Dad said you looked like shit but I didn't think he meant it this literally."

Muffled by the seat of his resting place, Jason snorted. "And yet you're attracted to me. What would dad say about that?"

"He'd go Deathstroke the Terminator on your ass for fucking his naive little baby girl." Rose pulled an intentionally sweet expression, innocence perfected and Jason wondered how many times Slade had been cornered and enslaved by that method. 

"And would dad know his  _naive little baby girl_  started coming onto me first?"  

Rose smirked. "Daddy doesn't know the finer details. If he did, he woulda gutted you last night and not brought you here." She sat by him, on the edge of the couch and crossed one leg.

"And apparently, the Arkham Knight was running himself into an early grave with the active rise in violent crime," Rose commented, off topic but clearly, this was the real reason she was here.

"Not like anyone else is doing anything about it." Jason shrugged, pulling his arms underneath himself and sitting beside her. The mood had done an irreversible one-eighty.

"Well, you can't do it at all, definitely not alone. Must be like getting fucked with a strap-on to juggle your substantial problems and all of Gotham's."

"Try Bane."

Rose scoffed disingenuously, smile teetering on her painted lips. "Now there's something I don't wanna picture."   She shoved a pillow into his face, one which fell into his lap and he tightened his arms around it.

"You send Slade after me?" Jason asked when Rose leaned back against the couch, looping her arm over the back in that classic guy move to get a handful of the nearest girl, only roles were somewhat polar. Rose did always like to wear the pants. Or try. 

"Nah, dad actually came to find me and told me to come here." Rose's smile widened. "He burst into my safehouse, middle of the night and goes," she cleared her throat, " _Rose! The damn kid needs you to beat some sense into his stupid ass_." Impressive, who knew a young woman could perfectly imitate a deep-voiced fifty-something man? 

"Please don't beat me."  Jason kindly requested.

"Not what I'm here for." Rose ran her fingers through his tousled hair.

"But I will break every bone you have if you keep doing this suicide route. You need to think, Jason. Use what little Joker didn't bash out of your head," she jabbed him in the temple.

"You're surefire to fail and fail  _epically_  with what you're doing right now. You're burning out, Jay." Rose quirked her head, carding her fingers affectionately through his hair.  For a Wilson and an assassin, the amounts of compassion in her were massive.

"Thanks, Rose." Jason quietly said. She had a point he hadn't seen. He knew he was running on fumes but for others to notice meant he was dangerously close to a breakdown. That couldn't happen. If he went down with no one to stand in, Gotham would fall on the same day.

"Don't thank me yet, I  _may_  have told Roy you were being a dumbass with no regard for your health and he  _might_  be on his way here right now." Rose was smiling innocently when she spoke and that's when Jason's mind was refreshed concerning the matter of Rose being Lian's babysitter. Lian  _Harper's_  babysitter.  _Shit_. When last they saw one another, a couple weeks ago, Roy made Jason promise to take care of himself and the archer was going to have his head.

"He'll kill me, Rose." Jason whined, slumping against the couch in pre-defeat. 

"I doubt it. He-"

"JayJay! Rosie!" An exuberant little ball of pig-tailed joy ran in through the slamming door and bounced on them, hugging tightly.

"Hello there, sweetheart." Rose laughed, tickling Lian and she squirmed in her lap, kicking and giggling. Looking at her, Jason couldn't help the tug of a smile the innocence children brought with it. That is until her father entered the building.... and he wasn't alone. An impossibly tall woman with orange skin, pulsating green eyes and flickers of fire dancing through her hair entered with him. She was six feet tall at least and she dwarfed Roy when walking beside him.

 _Starfire_. Why the hell did Roy bring Starfire to this intervention?

"Heya, shorty." Roy waved, cheery as ever and the anger Jason had expected wasn't there. He gestured to his company.

"This is-"

"Kori Anders." Kori said for him and regarded Jason with a look he couldn't name. It was friendly enough but.... It didn't make her any less terrifying. He had doubts anything could. 

"A pleasure," Jason said but continued eyeing his friend, trying to see the angle of bringing Kori here. While he pondered that, Rose....  _rose_ , lifting Lian into her arms as she did. The little girl gladly hung onto her beloved nanny.

"We're going out for ice cream. You three redheads behave, okay?" She tugged at Jason's hair, reminding him yet again that he needed to dye the disgraceful strands of copper back to midnight black. He brushed her hand away but she took the rejection to touch well.

"Bye-bye now." Rose waved over her shoulder and left them, shutting the door behind her, right before Roy could remind her,

" _No_  Skittle ice cream!" He was wise to say that. The E numbers in Skittles made Lian climb the walls. Roy sighed quietly when the door closed without Rose affirming she ever heard. She did. She  _definitely_  did, but whether or not she would listen was another matter altogether. 

"Jason,"  Roy said when turning back. "You probably remember from our Titan days what a badass Kori is."

".... Yeah." Jason did recall  _several_  things about the alien lady before him, but mostly from the teenage boy perspective.  _Ahem_....

" _Welp_ , I sent Oracle a message to get back to Gotham. Apparently, you didn't tell her everything was going to hell?"  _There_  it was. Roy's tone dropped an octave into disapproval. Concerned disapproval that made Jason look down at the dank colours of the carpet.

"I didn't wanna.... she was... busy." Jason lied. Never too busy to compromise, Barbara would have definitely come as fast as she could have if he'd told her but Roy didn't call him out on his bullshit defence and went back to the original topic.

"Babs and Kori here are gonna watch Gotham's ass for a bit - criminals beware - while you and I...."  Just by the look his friend gave him, Jason should have run. Every instinct screamed to run.

* * *

 

They say God works in mysterious ways.... well, so does Roy Harper, otherwise, Jason wouldn't have found himself at the docks, watching the archer skipping stones across the water's surface. He was so fucking weird, always was but never aimlessly. Without flaw, there was a method to the madness every time it presented. Roy just needed to tell him what it was. 

Rolling a small rock from hand to hand, his seat on the mooring post beginning to get uncomfortable, Jason shifted, crossing one leg over his other and after his relentless staring of his friend got him no answers, he realised he had to go about verbal communication.

"Gingersnap, we've been here for thirty minutes already. You gonna tell me why?" 

Roy tossed a stone with a purposeful twist of his wrist and watched it skip once, twice, thrice, before sinking into the depths with a pulp. Before it was at the bottom, he was bent, scanning the ground for another handful of smooth pebbles to suit his game.

 "We're just here 'cause it's peaceful." Above the loud buzz of the city that was nowhere near peaceful, Roy continued searching and when he couldn't find a stone of his pleasing, Jason extended the one he'd had. Gingersnap smiled his gratitude when he accepted it. 

"You been taking those pills the doc prescribed you?" Roy asked when looking for a suitable stretch of water to aim for, revealing what this was truly about. 

"Yes, but it's  _not_  working." Jason admitted but that wasn't entirely true. The drugs kept the voices at bay but the side effects were too much to handle, worse than the initial problem, in his opinion. He already had his mind under siege and failing, he didn't need his body doing it too by shaking and all the other damn things he was now dealing with.

"Then tell your shrink and he'll get you on another drug. It's hit or miss when it comes to a lot of mental health prescriptions, what works for one person won't necessarily work for you. Trial and error, y'know?"

Oh wow. Dumb as it sounded, that hadn't actually occurred to him.... He didn't know that was ever an option. The shrink had probably told him that but he hardly listened to a thing the man said. It was a work in progress in that perspective.

"You didn't have to come all the way out here for my sake, you know, Roy. Star City's not exactly next door to Gotham." He did appreciate it. Jason really did but burdening the people around you is what leads to being alone.

"Don't even  _dare_  go down that road, Jason." Turning from the waterfront, Roy warned him sternly. "I wanna hear no apologies for 'wasting' my time or any of that shit. When I said if you ever needed anything, I meant  _anything_."

Jason was beginning to learn that less and less, he needed to survey the people around him for  anything disingenuous behind the words they spoke. It was a conscious act to remind himself that Roy wouldn't lie to him or try to deceive but it was getting easier to trust him without a thought. 

".... Don't ever go anywhere, gingersnap." Jason whispered under his breath, an inner plea he may have intended to keep to himself but it came out aloud nonetheless. Roy regarded him with sympathy softening his freckle dotted features and a hand that landed on his shoulder, squeezing gently.

"Not a chance I will. Someone's gotta babysit you, which is why I and Lian are staying in Gotham for a few weeks." 

"To...  _babysit_  me?" Jason cocked a brow, desperately hoping Roy wasn't switching cities on his account, even if it was only temporary.

"While the girls watch Gotham and Rose watches my baby girl, it's my duty to watch you," Roy announced like a code of honour demanded it of him. 

"And if I don't want you to?" Jason inquired, not planning a protest to the R&R he desperately needed but he was curious as to what reaction he could incite by doing that.

"Then we send Slade after you again and trust me, he'll take a less gentle approach this time." He said, tipping his head to the side. "So, who's it gonna be? Moi? Or Deathstroke?"

" _You_." Jason didn't hesitate for a second. "You all the way."

Roy grinned. "Knew you'd see it my way.... now, how about we give that shrink of yours a ring?" 


	2. The Words of Warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... Hello.

"How have things been going recently?" The shrink pried, sincere gaze looming over his glasses as he clicked his pen on, the tip of it hovering over a blank sheet of paper on his clipboard.

".... S'okay." 

"Are you sure?"

"Okay."

"You're okay?"

"Okay."

"Jason, are you even listening to me?"

Sighing in frustration, Jason leaned heavily back into the couch and crossed a leg. 

" _No_." He forcefully admitted, glaring at the ceiling so hard his eyes strained while he knew the other was picking him apart under his gaze. It was something that made him more defensive than he ever was, even when talking to this guy was supposed to be some kind of magical cure-all. Three months, once a week, no progress, just this dumb generic therapist's office and a one-sided conversation.

"Jason, this isn't going to help you if you ignore me." The man exhaled softly through his nose like he too was getting frustrated with how stagnant the 'healing' process was.

"Then I guess I can go." Jason was eager when he shot to his feet and grabbed his jacket from over the couch's backrest. He was almost out the door when,

" _Sit_ down. We're not done yet." 

Jason could have run and not come back, but if Roy found out, he'd be dragged right back by his scruff. It's only recently that the archer stopped waiting in the hall outside for him to finish the session. So with a huffy groan, Jason slumped back into his seat, this time laying across it with his dirty boots on the armrest.

"Would you answer my question now?" The shrink asked as if nothing happened. This was a normal chain of events fifteen minutes into these weekly talks that Jason was sure they both hated.

"About how I'm doing?"

"Yes. Genuinely."

Jason crossed his hands over his abdomen. This man was so fucking demanding but he was the only psychiatrist who hadn't run out on him within two weeks, _max_. _Apparently_ , he wasn't forthcoming enough to work with.

"I.... am.... _fine_." He ground his teeth to say that. 

"How is the new medication working?"

Jason pursed his lips. "What's it for again?" 

"..... Treating schizophrenia."

"Then that's what it's doing."

His pen scrawled across the paper, taking down notes about Jason's reply like he always did as if there was anything new to document. They always had this same boring conversation.

"Why don't we talk about what's on your mind today?" The shrink always sounded so goddamn patient and caring, no doubt it was a challenging part of his job description, but he did it so well Jason could see why some people fell for the facade.

"Churros. I'm thinking about _churros_." 

"Your friend made you come here, didn't he?"  Often as he tried, Jason always failed to steer the other off topic since he _had_ to be so goddamn hellbent on everyone else's shit. He really needed to learn to mind his own business. 

"You really think I'd come to waste my time here if he didn't?" 

He wrote that down too, continuing with, "You seem to hold him in high regard and by his clear and consistent concern for you, he cares deeply for-"

"I am _not_ fucking gay." Sitting bolt upright to scowl at him, Jason retorted aggressively before the old goat could even say _it_.

"I didn't say you were." Came the calm, level-voiced response. "I simply stated that you and your friend have a complex in-depth relationship. But it seems to be a delicate matter for you if anyone questions your sexuality.... and that's interesting to me."

"Oh, _is_ it?" Jason cynically bit, narrowing his eyes on the man as if to kill him with the look. He was doing that prying thing of his again. He proved he was shameless when he chose to go on.

"That and your tendency for violent outbursts, irrational thinking and the reckless, often dangerous behaviour you partake in.... with your very vocal detesting to physical contact and the constant need to assert dominance... it leads me to believe there may be a  _deeper_ rooted underlying issue to this picture."

Fucking _bitch_. Was he _assuming_ all this based on those few irrelevant 2D character traits?

"Nah, it's just my fragile masculinity speaking." Sardonic as always, Jason tried shrugging and waving off whatever point he was trying to form but the nosy bastard went on.

"You have an extreme distrust for the same sex, I've noticed, especially your seniors-"

"And _what_ are you trying to say, _doc_?" Jason practically growled on the last letter of that inquiry. Unlike he wanted, the shrink wasn't phased, he kept making visual contact coolly.

"I just think with all those things in mind, it's interesting how much you trust your friend Roy." He finished by adding more lines in ink to his clipboard. Jason reminded himself in a repetitive mantra that he wasn't allowed to attempt, threaten, or go through with murdering this man. Roy and Rose said no to killing him on all the times they thought he might. 

"Or _maybe_ ," Irritated, Jason swung his legs over the side of the couch and interlocked his fingers, knuckles cracking. "I'm just _not_ gay..... and our time's up."

* * *

 

Waiting in the lobby outside the therapist's office, Rose could tell it did _not_ go well the moment she caught a glimpse of Jason's face. He stepped outside, full of self-righteous fury with his jaw tight set and fists shaking, nerves straining taut through the pale undersides of his wrists. 

"I _hate_ him." Jason's voice shuddered with the intensity of emotion. He didn't ask to know what Rose and Lian were doing here, he didn't care with how badly he wanted to murder his shrink. It was a work-in-progress where she and Roy were trying to make Jason understand it was the therapist's job to ask questions that could potentially be sensitive or intrusive.  

" _Please_ tell me you didn't off him like you tried the last three guys." Rose sighed, hand on one hip and already thinking about how they were going to cover it up if he did.

" _No_. But I was sorely tempted. He kept remarking on how Roy and I are  _friends_." 

"You _are_ friends." She told him in an unamused tone, extending her hand to take Lian's when she came back from playing with her dolls down the hall.

"Hello, JayJay." Lian smiled up at Jason, waving and unable to read the mood that left no space for cheer. But Jason, for all his brutish temperament, wasn't angry at her. He never could be and if anything, her presence and demeanour eased his mind a little. In fact, he smiled a bit.

"Hey, pumpkin." 

Lian hugged his leg. Nuzzling his thigh, she giggled against it.

"Daddy says we're gonna stay in Gotham to babysit you."

"Apparently you are." Jason replied, running his fingers through Lian's shoulder length ebony hair. He gazed down at her in a way that didn't let Rose in on what he was thinking. He had a lot of nameless emotions she enjoyed taking the day to decode.

Her eye narrowed on him, the other's vacant socket hidden by her hair, and she considered what to do with him. Roy was working and Babs was busy, so it fell on her shoulders to watch Jason and keep him from doing anything stupid. Last time he was unsupervised didn't end so well.... 

"Li, how about we go to the park?" Rose suggested and the little girl smiled widely, showing the milk tooth she recently lost.

"And we can get even _more_ ice cream? And we can play on the swings? And JayJay is coming?"

"I dunno," Rose arched a brow and like Lian, she was smiling at Jason but her expression came with a dare.

"Is _he_?"

And with that, the conflicted way his gaze travelled from Lian's expectant saucer eyes to fix Rose with an accusatory glare, she knew Jason wouldn't refuse.

She blew him a kiss to make up for it as they were off.

* * *

 

"You gotta talk to the therapist, you know," Rose said, going over what she had a hundred times already with Jason while they sat under a tall leafy tree in the park, supervising Lian playing a small distance away.

"I _do_ talk to him," Jason replied gruffly, arms around his knees, touching his chest.

"I vary between 'shut the _hell_ up', 'shut the _fuck_ up' and occasionally, when he really pisses me off, 'shut the _fucking hell_ up'." He finished on the tail end of a grumble and Rose knew he was sulking. Daylight, people around them, fresh air, all things that didn't agree with Jason.

"You talk to him about Arkham?" Rose asked, choosing to look past his moodiness. During the time they were together, she learned fast how necessary it was.

"What should I say? I was a street rat until Bruce Wayne took me in, and he's actually Batman then I became Robin, was captured, tortured and brainwashed until I turned into the Arkham Knight and reigned hell on Gotham for several months consecutively? But _now_ I've changed my mind about being evil." Jason took a deep breath when he finished and only so he could go on.

"You can see why that won't go down so well, can't you?"

"Well, _everyone_ knows Bruce is Batman, he knows you're Jason Todd, Bruce's _adoptive son_ , who _coincidentally_ disappeared the time as Robin 2.0 did. He's put some things together, surely." Rose explained and she'd honestly thought Jason had realised some of this himself. People weren't as stupid as he thought.

"You really think that bitchy therapist knows I used to be Robin?" He raised a disbelieving brow, only asking to mildly amuse himself with whatever conversation he could glean.

"I don't know what he knows and since you're such a closed book who's opposed to any communication, neither do you."

"I'm not _such_ a _closed book_ ," Jason argued back, quite uselessly and Rose wondered if he realised he had no real competitive argument.

"Slade says I'm easy to read."

"Dad's a profiler..... and he's old and creepy. He knows _everything_."

"But _you_ know me without being the old and creepy part."

To that, Rose's simplistic reply was,

"That's because I've had sex with you, Jason." And that was true. Once you've seen someone naked enough times, you know pretty much all there is to about them. And as if in an examination, Jason watched her for a second before he replied.

"... Funny how we go from talking about your dad to talking about sex with nothing in between, isn't it?"

" _Eww!_ Gross." Rose shoved him, laughing despite it. "Don't _ever_ mention my dad and sex in the same sentence _ever_ again."

"If it gets you to leave me alone I just might." Jason teased her and she liked seeing the rare genuine smile form on his mouth. It had always been her weakness that made kissing him a tempting thought. Maybe she was going to when Rose noticed Jason was abruptly looking at something in the far corner of his vision, something that made him shift uncomfortably and a sheepish hand hovered to hide the brand on his cheek..... Rose instantly knew what was up.

Nipping in annoyance at her lower lip, she coldly surveyed their surroundings until she saw the perpetrator _;_  a man walking by slowly, hands in his pockets and shamelessly gawking at Jason's scar. He was blatant and apparently, _repulsed_ by the brand. Jason got this a lot, insensitive fucktards who found someone else's disfigurement personally offensive.

"You staring at something, _asshole_?" Rose demanded aggressively and with a quick stating sweep of her hand, she pushed her platinum blonde bangs from over the spot her right eye should be, revealing the horrendous knots of scars left behind and those had the passerby staring a lot more, but perhaps in fear of her hostile response.

"You can't afford us, _bitch_ , so stop lookin', keep strollin' before I put my fucking boot so far up your ass you'll have _toes_ for teeth!" She barked as he quickened his pace, speed-walking away and trying to keep his head down when her outburst caused a number of people to revert their attention from minding their children to what they were doing. 

" _Jesus_ , Rose," Jason sighed, hands now hiding his face in shame of her. "Bring it down."

Brazen and unapologetic to those who'd now taken notice of them, Rose tucked her hair behind her ear to let anyone gape if they felt the need to, let them satisfy their urges on her and her scars and not Jason's. She was protective of him, to say the least.... but someone needed to be. 

"At least now he's not looking at you anymore," Rose said, smiling and proud to have dealt with the ass. 

"Yeah, but now everyone else is." He whined, muffled by how insistent he was to cover himself. She chuckled, crossing her legs and smoothing her crumpled skirt over her thighs.

"You're impossible to please."

"Oh yeah, _that's_ my biggest problem." Jason rolled his eyes. Rose was good at ignoring him when he got argumentative and instead of responding, she watched Lian running back towards them.

"Heya, sweetie."  Rose greeted her with open arms that she gladly ran into.

"Rosie, will you push me on the swing?" Lian eagerly requested, all starry-eyed.

"I'd love to." She said by the time Lian already had her by the hand and was pulling her up off the grass covered ground. Before Jason was out of reach, Rose grabbed him by the wrist but he didn't protest to being dragged along, say for the huff.

Rose tied her hair up to give Lian a push on the swing. She giggled when she went up in a gentle arch and then came back around to repeat the process. Jason was watching her, Rose could feel he was and she bit into her cheek to suppress the smile his attention garnered. It was stupid, she kept telling herself, that any boy looking gave her butterflies. It was _stupid_ because they weren't teenagers in high school. They were _murderers...._ and besides, back when they were together.... it was because fresh outta Arkham, Jason hated everyone and everything. He was completely out of control and needed an occasional distraction from the distorted wails of demons in his head. For Rose, it was just fun. He was cute, she was bored.... until she became fond of him. Then attached to him. Soon she missed him when he was gone and one day she made the dreadful realisation that she might _lov-_

"JayJay, can you push me?" Lian sweetly requested and Jason couldn't refuse. He motioned for Rose to let him take over.

"Not too high, Jay." Rose reminded him, arms folded while Jason carefully applied momentum into Roy's daughter. His hands were shaking with tiny tremors at how hard he was trying to be gentle. Jason struggled with being gentle. Rose understood why; slaughtering enough people left you untrusting of your own hands.

"Higher, JayJay!" Lian squealed amidst her giggles and Jason picked up his pace the minimal bit.

" _Higher_!"

"No more, Lian. I don't want you to fall." Jason's precautionary voice came. He sounded timid, unwanting to say no but equally opposed to any harm befalling his best friend's daughter. Rose found it curious how Jason had only known Roy a few months and was already ride-or-die for him. Considering Jason's notorious trust issues, that was extremely rare but she knew from personal experience how easy Roy was to like. He was so insensibly nice.

"Careful, Jay." Rose reminded him, not because she had to, but she realised Jason was struggling to be stern with Lian in regards to how high she was allowed to go. 

"When does Roy want her back?" Jason asked, reverting his attention from Lian for seconds.

"In a couple of hours. He's still working."

"Sometimes I forget he has a life...." Jason grumbled that and he sounded bitter, either he was jealous that Roy lived for something outside of his alias or Jason just hated sharing his BFF with the surrounding world. Rose suspected it was the latter.

"Rose," Jason said, "I was meant to ask you-" he didn't finish that question; his hand slipped on Lian's back and heart-stoppingly for all three parties, she was shoved off the swing and onto the ground with a dull thud. Rose was there to pick her up before Lian started to cry.

"Shh, it's okay, darling." She soothed, bouncing Lian on her hip.

"Where does it hurt?" Asking gently, Rose had already turned Lian's shaking hand in her own to examine her grazed palm. Sand and small bits of dirt stuck to the raw, exposed meat but it wasn't as bad as it looked. That, however, went past Jason. 

"I - is she okay?" Jason's words quivered fearfully from what he feared he'd done. Rose glanced at him; his eyes were like a deer's, posture crooked and fumbling with his fingers, twisting them far back.

"She's alright, baby," Rose assured him when he was clearly horrified with himself. "It's just a tiny cut."

"Sh - she's b - bleeding." Shakily, Jason gestured to the barely forming droplets of blood rising above Lian's skin. Despite Rose's efforts, Lian was inconsolable and Jason was freaking out over accidentally hurting her, leaving their carer itching to call Roy for backup.... but she couldn't. Like her father taught her, this was her responsibility and she needed to handle it without help.

"Jason, stop panicking, it's not that bad. Lian is alright." Rose instructed him then turned to the girl. She delicately blew the grit from the graze and planted a feather-light kiss onto the back of Lian's hand. Rose dug around in her purse until her fingers came upon the band-aids she carried with her in case of situations like this one. 

"Look, Lian, it's got Hello Kitty on it." Rose distracted Lian with the little white cat against the pink band-aid that she covered the cut with. In her experience, kids didn't give injuries a second thought when they were out of sight so she didn't count on Lian making a fuss out of it much longer.

"Let's go find out about getting more ice cream, yeah?" Despite her tears, Lian nodded weakly. With one child handled, Rose looked back to Jason to find he'd hardly calmed at all. The smallest things flipped the switch that made him frantic like this, traces of something the Joker left in him still controlling his behaviour and it was daggers to Rose's heart.

"I - I hurt her...." Jason whispered, mortified despite the injury not being a bad one. Rose could practically hear all the thoughts racing through his head; _what will Roy_ _say_ _?_ being the most troubling one. Knowing Jason, he was afraid this was the breaking point of their friendship.

"Th - there's blood." He continued. Rose reached over to wind her arm around his middle comfortingly, rising to her toes to kiss his brand the way she used to but perhaps to her disappointment, Jason didn't respond to her contact.

"Everything is fine, Jason. It's not bad." Rose promised him then added what he needed to hear, "Roy won't be mad."

Seeing he still wasn't listening to her over his own rapid thinking, Rose gave a soft sigh beneath her breath.

"Let's grab the ice cream and go home, okay?"

* * *

 

Roy's heart rate had been perfectly steady for the whole day. No spikes in stress levels and no near cardiac arrest, until he stepped outside of his humble security agency and walked into the snowy-haired one-eyed man nightmares were made of; Slade Wilson. Even in civvies, he was nothing short of terrifying, perhaps because normal attire didn't mean he was less jacked and not 6'4. The wisest, _safest_ thing to do was retreat slowly back into his establishment and hide out until Slade went away but last time Roy tried running from his daughter's nanny's father resulted in a broken femur that still had him limping. 

"..... _Slade_. What are you doing here?" Roy rigidly asked, involuntarily bettering his posture like the other's relentless glare demanded it.

"It's about the kid," Slade stated.

"My kid, your kid, or Jason?" The dry bit of humour Roy tried to interject didn't go down well but still, better than he expected; Slade didn't tear his head off his shoulders.

".... _Jason_." It seemed like a struggle to use his real name. "It's about Jason-"

"He's fine. Rose-" Roy gagged when Slade's hand wrapped around his throat and lifted him effortlessly off the ground, half a meter high. Apparently, his interruptions weren't appreciated.

"A few nights ago, he nearly killed himself with prescription drugs. Addiction runs in his family and he has _you_ for company...." Squeezing tighter around his windpipe for seconds, Slade dropped Roy to let him answer the question he was clearly going to with this.

"I get why you're worried," Roy coughed, rubbing his throat. "But don't be. I've been clean for five years and Jason's not hooked, it was an accident." 

"Better stay that way," Slade growled a needless warning through his set teeth, once again inviting the over-asked question of what made him care about Jason's wellbeing?

"And that new shrink, you've run a background check on him?" The mercenary went on and the military style checklist he was going through didn't go by unnoticed.

"Yes. Of course, I did." That was day one stuff. Once you'd lived with Oliver for a bit, you were running background checks on your background checking agencies. 

"Then I suppose you know he used to work at Arkham Asylum."

"Yeah, but that's got nothing to do with anything. He has no criminal record or prior convictions and he left Arkham _before_ any of the shit with Jason and Joker went down."

"I still don't trust him." Slade retorted. "Have you even told the kid about his former place of employment?"

" _No_! He's irrational and can be hyper-analytical to the point of a mental breakdown. He'd freak out and start seeing patterns where there aren't any, kinda like you're doing." Roy gestured to him in an example and Slade's single eyed scowl deepened, the thin faded ends of scars visible around his eyepatch twitching.

"And you _really_ think it's coincidental this is the only psychiatrist who hasn't given up with the kid within a week?"

Roy sighed. "The guy's dealt with people like Joker and Zsasz. Jason isn't quite on their level yet."

"Clearly you've never seen him in Venezuela." Slade was grim, foreboding, and left Roy's brow furrowed in puzzlement. _Venezuela_? Jason had mentioned spending time there at one point but never specified what he did..... Was the Arkham Knight, Roy presumed, the big scary guy with trust issues but nothing worse than that, surely.

"Harper, you have a very vague idea of who _Jason_ is." Slade continued and it sounded like a warning. "He hasn't cut your throat only because, for some reason, he trusts you. Break that trust in _any way_ , and the person you think you know will be gone. You'll pray he kills you quick and he _won't_." Unsure why, his words sent shivers down Roy's spine but he couldn't relate any of them to Jason. Jason _wasn't_ like that.

"I'm not afraid of any man, but if I had to pick one, it might easily be who you think is your friend." Okay, _now_ Slade was trying to scare him with this doomsday bullshit he was spewing. 

"Slade, I think you might have him confused for someone else." Roy's eyes narrowed on him, adopting a colder tone of his own. He didn't appreciate this slander that was nothing but Slade's delusional musing.

"You know one half of him," Slade said, "and I know the other. Eclipses are nice and all, but they only last a short while before the real thing comes back around."

* * *

 

Worrying over those foreboding things Slade told him, running them through his head relentlessly, Roy barely made it into the hallway of the place he and his daughter were staying at before another Wilson stepped into his path. Rose, blue gaze dull and her usual cocky smile nonexistent. From the raw redness around her fingernails, he could tell she'd relapsed into biting them again.

"What happened, Rose?" Roy asked, tired before knowing the details. Something to do with Lian and/or Jason, he presumed. 

"Lian fell out of a swing at the park and Jason freaked 'cause he thinks it's his fault and that you'll be mad. I went to buy ice cream for Lian and I lost Jason somewhere during that time. I don't know where he is right now." Swallowing, Rose blinked heavily, downing the emotion a day full of stress had brought with it. The poor girl was exhausted and after everything she described, that was not surprising. 

"Oh _god_ ," Running his fingers back through his hair, Roy exhaled deeply. "Is Lian okay?" 

Rose gave him an affirming nod, opening the door and shepherding him inside.

"It's just a graze she got. She's watching cartoons." She gestured to Lian, sitting cross-legged and too close to the TV screen with a sippy cup filled with juice clutched tightly in her hand. A thick blanket surrounded her like a cocoon, making her near impossible to make out underneath the mound. All in all, she looked fine. 

"Everything okay, baby girl?" Roy asked, just to make sure when he came into the living room. Lian glanced at him briefly, far more interested in what was going on with the animated characters dancing across the screen.

"Yes, daddy." She absently responded, already reinvested in the show and her father took it as a positive sign that meant she wasn't left traumatised after what happened. Off onto the next endeavour then for there ain't no rest for the weary. He didn't bother taking his jacket off and dropped the groceries he picked up in the kitchen.

"Rose, do you mind staying with Lian a bit longer? I'm gonna go find Jason-" Roy didn't get those words out before the person in question slipped quietly in through the door. Jason had with him a cardboard holder with two Starbucks cups in and he looked beside himself with worry.

"R - Roy..." Jason was extremely timid, shying carefully closer to Roy. "I - I got you this." He extended an uncertain hand with a cardboard cup in it.

"It - it's chocolate milk with cinnamon the way you l - like it." Jason pushed a smile of the fakest nature known to man but tugged at strings in Roy's heart, softening what already hadn't been hard.

"Why, _thank you_ ," Roy courteously accepted. "But.... You know I'm not mad, don't you? You don't need to bribe me."

Jason looked puzzled but didn't listen to him. "I'm really sorry I hurt Lian-"

"It was an _accident_ , Jaybird." The archer pressed. "No harm, no foul. She's fine."

"But there _was_ harm. Lian-"

Rose snatched the second cup from Jason and took a fearless sip, smiling when she did. She was trying to distract Jason and Roy secretly appreciated her stepping in.

" _Vanilla tea_? Jason! You know me so well!" Rose dragged a reluctant Jason over and kissed his cheek in gratitude for the drink that's intended owner was up for debate. Roy smiled a little. _Kids_...

That concluded how far Roy was willing to take the whole swing thing. Any further attempts to beg for his forgiveness from Jason were shut down.  Rose stayed over, so did Jason, they ordered pizza, and Lian wanted to watch Frozen. They were far from the movie's climax when Roy found himself to be the sole person awake. Lian was dozing in his arms and Rose was piled into Jason's lap. 

Blankly staring at the movie unfolding, an angsty blond lesbian building a snow castle as the night ticked on, Roy continued unwittingly ruminating over Slade's words of warning and soon, he found himself on his phone, filling the browser search bar with the sentence; _Arkham Knight Venezuela_. Narrowing his gaze on the three words that by themselves were harmless, Roy's thumb hovered above enter in consideration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think..... I think Rose might be perfect for Jason. Now, it never occurred to me to make this more than a one-shot, but after the marvellous odd_izzy suggested it, I was gripped. I have no idea where this is going, so bare with me who dare! Those who do, thank you so much my dear sweet darlings.


	3. The Venezuela Thing

_"Fifteen unidentified bodies found outside San Carlos, Venezuela, with a single gunshot to the back of each victim's head found to be the cause of death. Local authorities believe the executions were carried out by the crime lord known as Arkham Knight....."_

_"..... Appearing in San Carlos seemingly overnight, the mysterious terrorist and mass murderer some are calling the Knight has the city gripped by fear in what police say is the fastest spike in violent crime they've ever seen."_

_"New details about the grisly murder of Alejandro Luis, head of the San Carlos drug trade, have arisen. CTV footage shows the Arkham Knight single-handedly slaughtering Luis and his closest men. Thirty confirmed killings took place."_

_"The Arkham Knight's reign of terror spreads across Venezuela with no end in sight..."_

_"Who is this man? Sources say he hails from Bludhaven while - due to this name - others view Gotham City as his place of origin. That, however, reveals nothing about his identity or what sparked his rampage of violent murders. Anyone with information on this prolific killer is urged by law enforcement to come forth."_

Roy's eyes flitted to the prolific killer in question, harmlessly asleep on his couch, half a  _foot_  from his little daughter. He didn't have a thought process before he clicked on a video of Jason as the Knight. It was grainy, the quality was terrible like it had been filmed on an old phone held in a shaky hand. It saw the Arkham Knight  _interrogating_  a man. He was shrieking, crying, begging while Jason didn't care and broke his fingers. As if that wasn't enough, slowly and methodically, Jason began stripping the skin off his bones with strokes of his knife until it came out he didn't know whatever Jason thought he did. Jason  _chuckled_  with the realisation while his victim's body writhed, partially skinned and bleeding. 

Underneath that video was a link that he stupidly clicked on and it took him to a site where footage didn't take a second to buffer before screams exploded through the tiny speakers in his phone, screams that made Roy wince and he hurried to turn the volume down, watching Jason violently tear through a crowd of terrified men. One fell, Jason kicked his head in and cracked it like an egg.

Roy switched the phone off and almost threw it across the room, pinning himself into the back of the couch. What the fuck was  _that_?! That wasn't Jason! Whoever that was, he had the archer's heart stumbling and eyes wide in disbelief. That. Was fucking  _horrifying_  to see. And that was only a few a Google searches worth of Jason's history. 

So  _that's_  what Slade was talking about. 

Jason had told him he wasn't good. That he wasn't....  _right_. And Roy had always been clued in that he'd done some sick shit, but that was..... more than he could have held his friend accountable for. What bothered Roy the most was that those articles and the video, none of them gave away the motive. No reason  to justify the death. Nothing. Just him trying to get into Jason's head and find a good reason he did all of that.... and would he do it again?.... Were some of those people his friends, too? 

 _No_. Roy shook all the thoughts that betrayed him and Slade's warning out of his head. That was Jason before. Rose was a killer once. Roy had killed people, too. People changed, villains could go straight and when looking at Jason, the horrific brand burned into his face pushed the image of the ruthless murderer out of his mind and replaced it with the wounded Robin, asking him to never leave and panicking when Lian fell out a swing. 

Jason had two sides to him like Slade had said, polar sides at a duality, but that didn't change anything. Roy told himself it didn't, but he didn't sleep well that night. In fact, he may or may not have had his bow at hand's reach while never sleeping at all, instead keeping his eyes trained on Jason.

Paranoia saw several  _what ifs_  bob about his head.

* * *

 

It was like drifting to the shores of wakefulness in a coracle carried by gentle waves. Rose awoke snuggled up to solid warmth, slowly batting her lashes open to realise she was wedged between Jason's side and his arm, quite happily, she might add. Jason was fast asleep, his breathing even, slow and deep. His face was utterly void of any emotions, all walls torn down, leaving him looking so unlike himself. Rose brushed his fringe aside and pressed a savoury kiss onto his temple, inhaling a lungful of the smoky scent that always clung to him, reminiscent of the last explosion he set off.

Yawning, she smiled and pushed deeper into him, wishing she could stay there forever when a tiny hand landing on her face put a barrier in that.

"Rosie," Lian loudly whispered her breath hissing. Groaning, Rose looked at the little girl who was knelt on the edge of the couch, eyeing her cautiously.

"Wake up." She continued insisting.

" _Why_?" Rose whined, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"You just gotta wake up."

She didn't want to but Lian kept urging her to and much soon, Rose found herself sauntering into the kitchen where Roy was already up and preparing breakfast. Blueberry pancakes it looked like and the smell was nothing short of intoxicating.

"Morning, Harps." Rose yawned into her balled fist.

"Hey," Roy flipped a pancake while he greeted her over his shoulder. "Jason up yet?"

"Nah. Out cold." Which was unusual, given how anytime they were in each other's company overnight, it was Jason's cooking they all woke up to. Not that it was bad he was getting some additional rest, odd though it was.

"Rose, can you finish these? I gotta go see someone this morning." Roy started pulling the strings of his apron loose and Rose frowned at him in puzzlement.

"It's the weekend.... Where are you going?" Unless he had to, the archer  _never_  went anywhere this early in the day.

"One of my stand-ins called in sick, gotta cover for him," Roy explained. He was lying. Rose knew he was just by the twitch in the corner of his mouth and the way he busied himself with getting his coat to keep from maintaining eye contact. 

"When do you think you'll be back?" She questioned in the pretence of believing his deception, leaning against the kitchen door frame.

"Two hours? Three tops." Roy assured her that was how long he'd be gone for and she didn't mention that was a very tiny amount of time for him to be at work, but she let it and him go without giving up her scepticism as to what that little redhead was really up to. Had she not had Lian and Jason to babysit, she would have followed him. 

But she didn't. She couldn't. So Rose got on with finishing those pancakes Roy started on, with Lian expectantly waiting at the table and chattering away about cute nothingness with the occasional sip of chocolate milk through the straw in her glass. 

"..... And I think the moon isn't really cheese at all, but maybe it's frozen yoghurt?"

"Yes, Lian. I think so too."

Rose felt him before she spotted his appearance from the corner of her eye; Jason's familiar but sometimes disconcerting presence, especially when he came as quietly as he did then. 

"Hey, sugar." Rose smiled while Jason nodded a drowsy acknowledgement and mumbled some incoherent greeting to her as he unscrewed the lid of an amber bottle of pills and popped one, taking it dry despite how big it was. She did sometimes wonder how he managed to do that when she could hardly swallow a pill half its size  _with_  water to wash it down. 

"Where's Roy?" Looking around for him, Jason asked when he slowly came to the realisation that they were a man down. Roy's absence brought on an unmissable sudden panic to flash across his features.

"He's gone out. Someone called in sick. He'll be back in a few hours." Rose was quick to say and kill his franticness before it properly took off. Jason and his abandonment issues were no joke.

"He'll be back? S - soon?"

"Yeah, baby. Soon." Even with that assurance, Jason was twitchy for the following few hours. Logically, Rose suspected he was well aware that Roy would return. Like, why would he leave Lian if he as going away permanently? But alas, Jason spent most of Roy's absence being irrational and pacing. But, those were the possible side effects of antipsychotics, so Rose tried not to worry too much.

But that was easier said than done, so she tried to put all her attention into making cookies with Lian.

Soon, Jason decided to go out to get milk from the corner store. They were out and as Lian stated various times during her successful attempts to convince him to go, cookies were nothing without milk.

* * *

 

"Good day, Mr-" The shrink, Seth Olson, looked over the edge of his glasses when Roy came in, brows raised somewhat.

"Mr Harper.... I didn't realise you were my nine o'clock."

Roy shrugged and slumped into the couch opposite the man Jason detested.

"I gotta ask you something, but your contact info is for business only, so I'm paying for forty-five minutes of your time." Roy explained and although he could tell Olson was a tad puzzled, he was also slightly amused at the lengths the archer went to.

"Alright then." Olson clicked his ballpoint pen off and put his clipboard away, enlacing his fingers when he met Roy's eyes.

"What did you want to ask?"

"Jason. Jason Todd. You had a session with him yesterday-"

"I'm sorry, Mr Harper, but I can't disclose information about a patient." 

"I know, but-"

"I have a strict non-disclosure agreement." 

"Doc,  _please_ ," Roy asked, didn't mean to plead for his attention, not when he already paid for it.

"I know you're not allowed to tell me anything, and I don't need the nitty-gritty, I - I'm just worried, okay? I found something out about Jason and...  _Uh_...." He then realised how much be just said and how nonsensically bad it sounded. Sighing, he buried his face in one hand, shoulders slumping.

Silence ticked on for but a second before Olson spoke,

"Let's say, you discovered something that made you worry about your friend-"

"You mean Jason?"

"No, I mean  _your friend_. What about him  _or_  her, could make you worried?"

"..... My  _friend_ , he's, uh..... he's," Roy rubbed the back of his neck, going over what would be the most appropriate response. He wasn't here to gossip,  after all.

Seeing his flow of speech was stunted, Olson stepped in again.

"Well, let's start where you did. You found something out about your friend?"

"Yeah..... I - I used to have this mate....  _Richie_ , and whenever something was screwing with my head I'd talk to him and he'd.... Somehow fix everything." Roy stifled the need to exhale again when thinking back on how his lifelong friendship was nothing but a shit storm of lies. Sunny smiles hid the worst truths.

"Where's Richie now?"

"He.... Went away. Usually, I'd talk to him about anything remote to this, but... Can't do it anymore." Because, if he recalls correctly,  Jason launched Dick's corpse into space after drowning him in a pit of cement. There was a man who got things done. 

"So you're here because you need to talk?" Roy was about to respond but the shrink got to his own question first. "What discovery worried you?"

"My friend, I'm tryna help him but.... I may be in over my head."

"What makes you think that?"

"I knew him as a kid, so I kinda feel like I gotta look out for him. His family's gone to shit so, there ain't many left to do that. But... He's got major issues, y'know? I thought I was enough but.... Someone came up to me yesterday and warned me to stay away from him."

Olson was writing that answer down.

"Why is that?"

"My friend.... He used to be really involved in crime. Like, crime lord's second involved." Rather, he was the crime lord, or terrorist, or mass murderer, depending on the article you're going off.

"And.... I guess I'm just... Kinda  _scared_  of him? Well, not me, per se, but I have a little girl and..."

"You're worried your friend might hurt her?"

" _Yes_ ," Roy admitted and saying it aloud was a lot. "I... I wasn't before. I knew he had his problems but.... I wouldn't be worried if that guy....  _Wade_ , hadn't warned me about him, so now I'm just wondering if I'm being paranoid?"

Olson took a moment to consider his reply, pursuing his lips.

"I must say, you've got a reason to be concerned, but... Have you confronted your friend about this?"

"No. I don't know what he'll say. I don't want him to think I'm turning on him cause he  _would_. That's what he's like."

"Is there any chance this is a misunderstanding?"

Thinking back on the videos, what Slade said, the articles.... Roy was confident when he shook his head no. Not a chance, never mind that's all he wanted it to be.

"Have you spoken to the police?" Olson had a good reason to suggest that, especially when Roy realised the magnitude of what he let slip. He had to go.

"Good point. I'll definitely tell the cops if something happens." Roy stood hurriedly and was quick to ask,

"That non-disclosure agreement, it applies to this conversation, yay or nay?"

"It does. Yes. But if you-" The shrink was cut short by a little knock on the door, followed by his secretary popping her head in.

"Mr Olson, your car alarm has been going off for five minutes." Her tone was gentle and apologetic for the interruption, but Olson took to it without so much as a raised brow.

"Right. I'll go take care of it." Olson said. "Thank you, Ginny." And with that, she was gone, back quietly out the gap she appeared through.

"Mr Harper, I'm going to go tend to my car. Will you wait a moment?"

Roy sat back down, nodded, mumbled a yes, and watched him leave, patiently waiting for the door to shut again before he bounced back up. For a talented hacker trained by Oliver Queen himself, it wasn't difficult to access Olson's computer and the file he'd written up on Jason and with the remote alarm Roy rigged his car with, Olson should be gone just long enough.

"Let's see...." Roy murmured to himself, guiding the cursor above a file titled  _J. Todd._  He clicked and started reading over notes the doctor had made.

_".... The patient shows signs of severe childhood abuse of the physical, psychological, emotional and sexual nature. Although he is young [he refuses to give his exact age, but looks between 19-22] 64% of the patient's body is covered in scars made with various tools from battery acid to a surgical knife and iron nails, indicating to a very violent traumatic background [origins of scars currently unknown]."_

_Really_? All that was an  _indicator_?

" _The patient expresses worrying amounts of violent outbursts and talks about acts of brutality he has either committed or plans acting upon. He jests majority of the time, making it difficult to decipher when he is being serious. Comedy appears to be a crutch for the patient, who has a very morbid sense of humour centring mostly around suicide, rape, homicide and other similar subjects._ "

Yeah. Like Roy needed written lines to tell him Jason was as dark as Edgar Allan Poe with his comments and so-called jokes.

_Symptoms: Hallucinations [auditory, visual, tactile]. Disorganised thinking. Abnormal Behaviour. Insomnia. Extreme anxiety. Panic attacks. Mood swings. Dissociation._

_Diagnosis: Schizophrenia. Post-traumatic stress disorder. Bipolar disorder [presumed]._

Okay. Roy already knew all that about Jason, and although he tried not to pry too much into confidential information, he needed to learn if Jason had expressed any recent troubling behaviour. After the new burst of nightmare fuel, Roy needed to know Jason was improving, if even a bit. He needed hope instead of paranoia and if not, then he needed a heads-up everything was going to hell. 

_"The patient has responded positively to prescribed antipsychotics [asenapine], and has seen a reduction to the number of hallucinations he experiences. I have confidence with time and treatment, he can achieve a relatively normal lifestyle."_

Ah... There it was. What Roy needed so badly.  _Hope_. The notes went on, there was plenty more to read but he didn't want to intrude any more than he already had.

Those were notes about Jason, the broken person who needed serious help and not observations of the murderous Arkham Knight.

As he set off, Roy was beyond relieved Olson thought Jason could get better. It made it easier not to be afraid of him and believe those horrible crimes were in the past, despite what Slade might think. Slade was fucking crazy, anyway. What did he know? Nothing. Slade knew nothing.

* * *

 

After leaving Olson's office, the archer decided to drop by work so as not to properly lie to Rose. It was freezing and raining, and he got a surprise visitor..... Jason was hunched over on the front steps of Roy's establishment for some God-fucking-knows-why reason. He was shivering and was soaked to the bone, knees drawn to his chest, looking completely miserable.

"Jason, what the  _hell_?" Roy jogged to him and knelt, water on the steps splashing up his thighs when his knees met the ground. His hand landed on Jason's back and carefully shook him, not quite snapping him out of his feverish state but more like gradually drawing him from it. Jason blinked heavily, blank eyes hardly focusing on him.

"Jay," Roy worriedly said, unable to look past how pale and cold his friend was. Jesus, how long had Jason been out here? He was shaking so violently.

"Let's go inside, shorty. You're gonna catch a cold." If he hadn't already contracted pneumonia, that is.

"J... Just dn't -  touch me." Jason mumbled, tightening his arms around himself. He sounded disoriented, to say the least like he wasn't sure what was happening. Dissociation.... his happened to Jason sometimes, but rarely to this extent. What was he doing here, anyway?

"Okay." He took his hands off Jason. "But let's go in, yeah?" Roy urged but maintained his voice calm and kind, anything but could have unforeseen repercussions. He didn't know what was currently going on in Jason's head or what could potentially trip him.

"I - I don't... Wanna go a - anywhere." Jason grumbled, buried his face in his knees.

"Well, you can't stay you here, Jaybird. You're gonna get sick." 

"The bugs...." Jason straightened and he ran his fingernails over his blueing forearm. ".... They're so  _scratchy_." 

Roy arched a brow, rising as did his mounting concern.  _Bugs_? Jesus, how delirious was Jason right now? Hopefully far enough gone to not realise or protest when the archer wound his arm around him and drew him off the ground, starting to walk him indoors.

"Do you think they have a home in there?" Jason continued on mindlessly, fumbling with the zip of Roy's jacket like he was trying to extract something as he tugged at it.

"I dunno, Jay." Mostly, Roy didn't know what Jason was talking about and whether or not it had a home, but he paid that less attention than getting his friend inside his building. On the weekend, they worked a graveyard shift, only one guy was present and when they came in, he gave Roy the most confused and understandably so expression.

"Boss....? What's going on?" He asked, confused beyond words when Roy sat Jason down and crouched by him.

"I'm not sure yet, Colin." He mumbled in response, checking Jason's pulse, his eyes, breathing, all those things that were telltale signs of a drug-related problem, like before, but all his systems seemed fine, say for cold. Roy had grimly thought it might be similar to what happened a few nights ago, and needless to say, it was relieving to find it wasn't. But then.... what was wrong with him? 

"Jaybird, what happened?" He eventually stopped to ask and Jason gave him the most dissociated face instead of replying.

"Sh - should I call someone?"

" _No_ , Colin." Roy signed rather aggressively, frustrated with the grey area of the situation. What the hell was wrong with Jason? And what was he doing here? Rose was supposed to keep an eye on him.

"Colin," he stood, looking to his employee then gestured to Jason. "Don't let him go anywhere. I'm gonna make a quick call." He went into the privacy of the next room to give Rose a ring. When she picked up almost immediately, Roy didn't get a word in before her voice burst through the speakers,

_"Roy - do you know where Jason is? He's been gone for an hour and he won't answer calls. I tried to go out to look for him but-"_

"Chill, Rose. I've got him but he's... kinda freaking me out. He's really detached and disoriented, did he seem alright before he went out?"

_"He was a bit twitchy but I thought that was a side effect of his pills."_

"It is. It might just be another episode of his but...." Roy glanced at Jason through the parted door. He was intently staring at Colin, who kept a safe five-meter space between them. 

"But I don't know for sure."

* * *

 

Gradually, fingers of confused mist parted and Jason started coming around. With a groan, he blinked a several times, covering his face with his hand and digging his nails into his skin. Why did his head hurt so much? Slowly, he realised he was cold.... no, not just cold.  _Freezing_. He was shaking, his clothes were wet, and he was in this strange place with a strange man looking at him. 

"Wh.... Who are you?" Jason asked in puzzlement before any dots as to how he got there connected. His brain was still somewhat stuporous. 

"M'name is Colin." The man said and added, "Roy's gonna be back soon, he's just callin' someone."

"Ohkay...." Jason worriedly ran his tongue along his lip and looked around for Roy, catching a comforting glimpse of red hair attached to the person in the next room over. He was beginning to realise he'd had an episode of dissociation. He'd experienced them before but.... he didn't think they'd ever been this bad. He'd never woken up in another place afterwards.

 _Shit_.

"You okay, mate?" Colin asked, leaning down, hands on his knees, uncomfortably close.

"Yeah." Nodding, Jason murmured while his fingers found and tightened around the handle of the concealed knife in his boot.

"Just fine." And then with a fluid swish and rabbit-fast swing, he'd cut Colin's throat wide open. Blood exploded into Jason's face in hot vigour as the man stumbled and fell, gasping wetly through the oil-slick mess that was now his trachea. His hands shook, trying in vain to cover the wound gushing his life source across the floor he'd just been standing on.

Thinking little of it, Jason wiped his knife clean on his sleeve before slipping it back where it came from, just in time to meet Roy's horrified eyes when he stepped back into the room.

" _Jason-_!" Roy couldn't have sounded any more terrified if he'd tried and Jason didn't understand why. Roy had seen death before and knew Jason had caused it more times than history could tell.

Rapidly, the archer tried to cover Colin's gaping throat but couldn't, not since Jason caught him around the middle, lifting him off the ground to keep him from doing a thing to help that man. He couldn't save him, even if Jason let him try.

" _Jason_  - fucking let me go!" Jason was surprised by how desperately Roy struggled against him. He could hurt himself with all this squirming. Jason tightened his grip around the other, trapping his flailing arms to his sides and catching him by the chin with his spare hand. 

"Sshh, ginger. It's okay." Jason assured him, delicately stroking the side of his face and leaving long strokes of fresh blood. Roy had gone rigid as a plank of wood but tiny trembles went through him and his breathing came out in short bursts.

It occurred to Jason that Roy might be  _scared_.... Of  _him_? 

"I'm not gonna hurt you." Jason didn't know if Roy knew that or what other misconceptions he'd somehow formed in his head.

"J - Jason, please put m - me down." Roy shakily asked and there was a definite undertow of fear to his voice that Jason now was sure of.  _Damn_. Roy wasn't supposed to be scared, not by something as small as  _that_.

"Hang on." Jason waited for half a minute until Colin's attempts to breathe stopped and he was sure the man was dead before he unwound his arm around Roy. The instant he was free, Roy backed away from Jason and fixed him in both horror and that aforementioned misplaced emotion.

"Why - why the fuck did you kill him?" Roy stammered and he didn't stop shaking. His skin had gone pale milky white, contrasting against his hair and the blood covering half his face, thanks to Jason.

"Cause he's bad." Jason shrugged but when understanding that Roy needed context, he elaborated some.

"The guy used to work at Arkham. I remember him. Colin Mercer. But I guess he doesn't remember me. Funny, I thought the brand was a dead giveaway." While he explained, Jason rolled up the sleeve covering his left arm, letting Roy see tens on thin scars in the shape of tick marks. Four lines, then one across to make five and there were columns of them stretching across his skin. 

"He was helping me keep count of how many days Joker kept me for." Jason didn't realise how insane his voice became or that there was a curl in his lip while he traced the scars with his finger as if the memories they held were pleasant ones.

"But then after day fifty, he got bored of cutting me like a line of coke and fucked my face instead." Jason gave another shrug of his shoulders at the end there, like it was no big deal, really.

"And  _then_  - really funny story - I nearly bit his dick off. He had to get a shit tonne of stitches to keep the thing." Jason laughed a bit and added, "He left me alone after that."

"Oh my fucking God, Jason," Roy breathed, hand covering his mouth and horrified for purely new reasons. Reasons that shifted into Jason's favour. 

"I - I had no idea. I ran a background  check on him before I hired - there was  _nothing_  about him working at Arkham."

"Of course not. Arkham has lousy bookkeeping and even if it didn't, it's really not that hard to hide things about yourself." Jason rolled his sleeve back down, the hem touching his wrist, hiding what was just another myriad of old wounds, and started going about dragging the body somewhere he could dispose of it. He pulled it by the ankles and carefully stepping around the blood trail, Roy followed him.

"Sorry I scared you, gingersnap. I didn't mean to. But before you go an' call the cops on me, consider how this piece of shit tortures and rapes kids. Ask yourself then if Colin is worth a 911 call."

" _What_?" Roy paused. "Jaybird, I'm not gonna turn you in. This fucker hurt you." He gestured to the body at his feet,  silently seething now that he understood. He was not angry at Jason for what he did, but at himself for allowing this man to exist underneath his radar. He'd often wondered but never asked who gave Jason those tick marks on his arm, only to then realise that person had been a phone call away all this time. 

"Collie always liked cramming things down my throat, it's nice to return the favour." Jason gazed at the parting his knife left in its wake, pleased with himself but there was more there too. Something unnameable and Roy yet again reminded himself of what Olson had written down.  _Comedy appears to be a crutch for the patient....._ with that in mind, he didn't say a word about Jason joking in the midst of this. 

"Jay," Roy said a while later, once they'd gotten rid of the corpse and mopped the floor clean. "I think you had another one of your dissociation episodes. You were completely out of it when I found you on the steps outside."

Jason frowned while he dried the floor with a cloth, on his hands and knees like a proper Cinderella.

"I think so, too. I was going to get milk for Lian's cookies and the next thing I know is that.... I'm here." 

"Least you came here and didn't get hit by a bus or somethin'." Roy tried to see the slender silver lining in all this troubling mess and continued cleaning the floor. He regained his faith in Jason, then lost it for moments, but now that he went over it in his head.....  _initially_ , he'd been unable to see why Jason killed Colin, but the reasoning made it justified. He wondered then hoped that it was the same with those articles and videos. Jason was full on fucking crazy, no one could argue, but madness could have a method to it.   

Roy abruptly stopped scratching the drying blood from between the floor tiles and looked at his friend, catching his blue stare square. 

"I found something, Jason. Videos. Articles. Of you. As the Knight, massacring tens of people across Venezuela." That all came out before he could put a dam between his brain and his mouth, and clearly, the burst of information caught Jason off guard. With a shallow sigh, he sat back on his folded legs, never mind how the floor was wet.

"I've told you I did some shit in San Carlos." Jason weakly defended, as if he'd specifically ever clued Roy in on the matter.

"Yeah, but I didn't know to what extent. It just.... I dunno, shocked me, I guess?" 

Jason sucked on his lower lip and bit it when realisation washed over him. "So  _that's_  why you were so scared of me? You... thought I'd gone nuts again?" 

Roy didn't tell him he was still very much in the insane category and gave a small, subtle dip of his head.

"Yeah. For a sec before you told me why you killed Colin." And quite intentionally, Roy left out the parts about Slade warning him to be wary of Jason and how he broke into the shrink's office to intrude on confidential information. That.... was the wrong move when he realised he could have just  _asked_  Jason about all this.

"A lotta people I offed in San Carlos were bad guys,  Roy. Human traffickers, drug lords, guys who pimped out kids, just.... sick,  _sick_  people." His gaze was far-off like his soul had vacated his body to look back on the atrocities he listed and how he dealt with them. 

"Just the media never mentioned that," Jason continued, "but I guess.... it's just gang violence when one guy with a military kills another?  _But_  not everybody I killed was for some justifiable and selfless reason. Not even close." He made sure Roy knew that, his dark tone wouldn't let him believe it was anything but that.

"Don't think I'm some angel of Arkham. I wasn't Batman with a gun in Venezuela. A lotta the time, I was killing crime lords to steal their money, build my militia and destroy Bruce. I skinned a guy 'cause his  _cousin_  pissed me off. And no other reason why." Jason's eyes were nearly black as he recounted and raised them to Roy, off the ground where they'd stayed locked for an uncomfortably long time. Just like with Slade, a chill traced the archer's spine. Roy didn't know when, but Jason had come a little closer to him and his voice was coming out a whisper now,

"I had to focus on one thing and getting to it, no matter what. Revenge, fighting, killing, cutting Bruce's head off.  _Anything_  but the past. So I did." Jason smiled a little then, but it was no sane nor happy smile. It was another of his emotions that had no names.

"Slade said I was as bad as Joker..... I think he was scared of me a couple of times. Picture it. Slade Wilson, Death- _fucking_ -stroke,  _scared_  of  _me_. Unbelievable, right?" No. No, it wasn't, not after having heard Slade say something extremely similar the former afternoon and Roy was entering a whole new level of worrying over Jason and by the way he spoke, what he could do. But then he said  _it_ , the first word of reassurance.

"But I don't wanna ever do any of that again. I don't wanna be so angry that I can't control myself 'cause....." Absently, Jason's fingers ghosted over his brand and god knows where in his head the memory of it took him. 

"Cause I don't wanna be Joker." 

"You're not." Roy finally got a word of his own in and placed his hand onto Jason's shoulder when he did, giving him a reassuring squeeze despite the nightmares he retold.

"You're Jason."

He shook his head, a veil of black hair half covering his face shaking. "Not 'm not. Not yet. I'm still part terrified Robin and part screwed up Arkham Knight, but..... I think I'd like to be Jason again."  

Roy couldn't help the runty tug of hope that sentence gave him, another silver lining in the jumble of horrors. He wound his arm around his friend's shoulders and pulled him into his side, hardly remembering a thing Olson, Slade, or even Jason said about himself. 

"Then let's make you Jason again." 

Jason glanced at him, a little smile forming. "You know that sounded really fucking weird, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is going sooo well......


	4. The Mixed Signals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore Rose and Jason a bit more, so let's go back in time, yes?

_It was hours before movement stirred. Hours of Rose perched on the edge of a roof, waiting for a sign of life. In the humid Venezuela night air, her heavy kevlar vest and constrictive spandex suit were like a furnace, tempting her to take her mask off and wipe the beads of sweat away. She panted, had her cheeks blown out when the creak of a door snapped her 10/20  vision to fix on a man step out the building she'd been watching since afternoon. Upon first glance, it was obvious he wasn't who she'd been hoping for and her shoulders slumped a little in disappointment, but she peeked at him nonetheless. He was tall and well muscled, but nowhere near the same as her father, covered head-to-heels in armoured plates and kevlar that made Rose wonder how he was surviving the heat. Hopefully, he had an AC or something built into that suit, if not, then he was literally toast._

_Intrigued, Rose observed how he walked with purposeful strides, not wasting a second to dally but it wasn't really confidence that was oozing out of him. It was more like.... self-set purpose. A mission. His hair was faded black, dyed she could tell, and in need of a re-colouring soon. No part of his features was settled into an expression that suggested he was at all pleased but at how naturally the glare seemed to come for him, Rose was quite sure that was his neutral face. Leer aside, hate-filled scowl burning the ground, he was thinking so intently she could almost hear the loud jumble of thoughts. There was a burn scar on his cheek, distinctly a J, and it twitched every time a facial muscle did._

_Speaking of faces, he had a surprisingly pretty one. She liked how true blue his eyes were and Rose openly admired him until the moment he shoved the helmet in his hands roughly over his head.  With a click-hiss, it was locked into place. She almost sighed aloud at how crestfallen that move made her._

_Forgetting why she was initially here, Rose jumped into the alley, behind him, and he turned slowly on his heel. There was a gun in his hand before she saw him ever touch it. Note, for a stud muffin, he was fast._

_"Who the fuck are you?" He spat and through the visor of his helmet Rose felt his stare boring into her. Another note, he was fucking easy to piss off. Rage came off him in waves with no need to trigger it._

_"Rose. I'm looking for Deathstroke."_

_For a moment, he considered her for her words, tilting his head in a way that reminded her of a puppy or exotic bird. He probably didn't intend that._

_"Well, I ain't Deathstroke." He curtly responded. His voice, filtered and modulated, sounded like the prerecorded voice of a machine but she still made out the parts that were human._

_"Yeah, I can see. You know where he is?" She remained civil. Rose wasn't giving up with this rock figure of a man. If he knew where her dad was, then by God, he was going to tell her._

_"Yep, I do but I don't give confidential information away to any cosplaying blonde bimbo chick with fake tits, so scram before I do something we both regret. Get home to the uncle who fathered your eldest child, I'm sure he misses his broad." He stepped away again and momentarily, Rose felt like she'd been slapped. What a rude ass! She ground her teeth and looked after him angrily, hardly thinking at all when she picked up a long discarded piece of 4x4 wood and before he was out of reach, whacked him in the ribs with it. The thunk was quite satisfying._

_He reeled from the impact, almost off his feet and while she didn't doubt he could catch himself, Rose did it for him. She grabbed a handful of his throat and threw him into the wall, closing her hand around him, sliding him higher up the brickwork until his feet weren't on the ground. He choked, clearly surprised by how strong she was and he could thank her inherited modified genetics for it._

_"Listen here, you mistakenly conceived upstart boy," Rose hissed, increasing the pressure around his trachea with every letter._

_"I'm looking for my dad, Deathstroke, and you're either gonna wisen up and fucking talk or I'm ripping the information from you cell-by-fucking-cell!"_

_Blinking, he shifted in her grasp, one hand around her wrist, surveying her for a minute or so. There was not only surprise coming off him.... But also, he was impressed. Men like him, they respected only power._

_"...... I was actually going to meet Slade now. You're welcome to join me." At his change of heart, Rose released him but kept her length of wood handy, in case he forgot his place._

_"Seriously, though," He rubbed at his throat and pointed a shameless finger to her chest. "Those real?"_

_Scoffing, Rose hit him again. He caught it this time._

* * *

 

_After the rocky start to what some might call, their relationship, she learned with enough prying that he was called Jason. On a first name basis, Rose got along with him exceedingly better over some time, so much so that when she stayed in Venezuela to see her dad, Jason's was the bed she woke up in._

_On such a morning, after an hour of staring at the ceiling, trying for sleep and failing, Rose sat up. She drew her knees to her naked chest and with it, the blanket that had been perfectly white, now stained with sweat and other substances she'd rather not think about. Yawning, she rubbed the sleep from her eye then blinked back the golden sunlight, streaming in through the window and its parted curtains, so long they nearly touched the floor._

_Rose was surprised that Jason was still here. Even though it was his safe house, he rarely stuck around after the deed, with the exception of today. He was asleep today, on his belly and the blanket covering him in a way that showcased the red scratch marks she left on his shoulder blades.  Half of Jason's face was buried in a pillow, his hair a dishevelled mess, strands knifing the air at obscure angles._

_Smiling to herself, Rose leaned over to smoothen it down, lightly kissing him on that horrid scar as she did. Jason wasn't one for cuddles, hugs, hand-holding or basically, any delicate or intimate handling of any sort, so awake-him never would have let her do it. Jason was a wild creature with fire in his blood, tender loving care wasn't his cup of tea. Unless Rose wanted to cuddle him, in which case he would have no say in it. Jason was not stronger than the serum made her, which is what she suspected sparked how much crazier his already killer workout routine recently got._

_Rose covered him properly and left to take a shower. She didn't close the bathroom door, leaving it ajar and with no need to strip, stepped into the shower. Turning the faucet, a stream of soft hot water collided into her, releasing the after-sex tension at once. Sighing, as the heat enveloped her nude body, she tipped her head back, letting it all cascade down her sleek white hair. It was a while of simply enjoying the warmth before she put any actual effort into washing. Rose grabbed a loofah and squeezed a dollop of soap onto it, the scentless kind that was the only type Jason would use, and started scrubbing at the brownish-blue lovebites the Arkham Knight speckled her with. She would have to cover the ones visible despite clothes with foundation... unless of course, she wanted dear old dad to kill Jason. Majority of her romantic partners met the same unfortunate end; her father._

_Once she was done, Rose rinsed, soap draining off her, the water sending it down her back in little streams. It tickled, running through her hair._

_Rose stepped out after a considerable while, wrapped herself in a religiously folded towel, and wrestled her hair into a messy ponytail to sort out on a later date. She went back into the bedroom to find Jason had woken up, pulled on a pair of pants, and was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head viced in his hands. He didn't look well, she immediately noted._

_"What's wrong, baby?" Rose asked, approaching him with careful steps, in case he was off the deep end again. Jason went from regular extremely dangerous to Joker extremely dangerous with nothing in between._

_"Nothin'." Jason grumbled, almost too low to hear. His head was bent, not letting her see his face but she didn't need to do that to notice he was digging his fingernails into his skin. He's pale. Really pale, like milk._

_"Nightmare?"_

_"No." Jason grunted, swallowing heavily as if there was an unsavoury flavour he was trying to wash down. With a jerk, he pushed off the bed and headed for the bathroom, and it was with concern that Rose followed after. He was barely at the toilet before he puked his guts out._

_"Jay!" Rose was surprised to see him sick. She didn't know why, she may have never imagined the Arkham Knight as having any human weaknesses to him,  and certainly not to this extent. Jason threw up again, coughing, he spat out bile and watched it descend down the drain with blank eyes. He sniffed._

_"Jason, are you okay?" Rose tentatively inquired, inching closer step by step and he barely gave half a nod before the meagre remaining contents of his stomach decided to rush up his throat. Rose winced at how he almost convulsed with the force of the vomiting. After while, where it seemed like it stopped but he was still miserably bent over the toilet, Rose carefully sat next to him, running her hand down his spine and tried to ignore the rise of scars forming HAHAHA, carved into Jason's lower back. In fact, she tried ignoring all the scars he had._

_"You eat something weird, babe?" She asked and he scoffed despite himself._

_"No."_

_"Maybe you did and just forgot?" She suggested, to which he responded to with a strange unidentifiable noise of annoyance._

_"I didn't." He muttered, voice made dry by the stomach acids burning his throat. "I haven't eaten for four days, so trust me, some expired San Carlos street stall trash isn't responsible."_

_Exhaling through her nose, Rose rolled her eye at how obvious his sentence made the problem. Fucking Jason..._

_"You don't suppose you could be feeling ill because you are, in fact, starving?"_

_"That's the stupidest thing you've ever s-" Jason didn't finish, not since he threw up again. Biting her lip, Rose waited for him to be done before she tried any more common sense on him._

_"If you don't eat something, I'm telling dad. You remember last time, don't you?" Rose arched a knowing brow, her threat was very real, and by Jason's pause, she was sure he was thinking back on it. Thinking back on Slade ripping his head back by the hair to force water into him on one particularly hellishly hot Venezuela night where Jason decided screw staying hydrated. Slade had decided otherwise...._

_"You're seriously gonna report me to your daddy? Fuck's sake, Rose..."_

_"I'm dead serious, Jason. You may enjoy the possibility of dropping dead at any moment from neglecting yourself, but I don't." Maybe she didn't mean to say that, or imply she cared about him, because such an act always aroused suspicion from Jason. As such,_

_"And, pray tell, why would you mind if I drop dead? It's not hard to find overnight company to replace me."_

_Of course, that's what he'd say. This thing they were doing, it was just sex to Jason. They'd been involved for months now and Rose had taken a liking to him despite her efforts not to, but she was quite sure Jason was simply incapable of forming an emotional attachment to anyone, so she didn't take it personally._

_"I don't want you to starve, Jason. It's not deeper than that." It's not like she cared..... She did but she didn't want him to know it. The Arkham Knight was notorious for exploitation._

_"Sure it's not." Jason smirked somehow past the sickness. Rose didn't feel bad when he gagged and almost vomited on the tiled floor. Ass...._

_"How are you throwing up so much if you haven't eaten?" Rose asked when Jason lifted his head again, not looking particularly happy. All the pallor was washed away from his face._

_"Maybe cause everything in existence fucking hates me." He grumbled, resting his chin on his folded arms after wiping the bile on the back of his hand._

_"I don't hate you." Rose quietly said, not sure why she did._

_"Then you're not part of existence."_

_"You're really saying I don't exist?" Arching a brow, she frowned, disbelieving he was actually being serious._

_"No." Jason buried his head in his arms, muffling his voice and she barely heard what he said next,_

_"I'm saying you're too good to be real."_

_Rose's forehead crinkled, unsure she heard that right. Surely not._

_"What did you say, Jason?" She leaned a little closer, doubt aside that statement... Made her feel something.  But Jason didn't give her so much as to clarify what he meant, he grumbled a word of insensible dismissal._

_Later, he pretended he never said that and it didn't come up again. Like everything about his past, in his head, it didn't happen._

_But he did eat. Rose was quite convincing when they were within shouting distance of her father_.

* * *

 

"Rose," 

Rose wasn't proud of how high the sudden sound of the voice made her jump in fright, nor would she admit to the yelp of surprise or how her heart leapt when guess who showed up in the darkened corner of her apartment, making himself known the second she arrived home that evening. How fucking long had he been lurking there, waiting for her?

" _Jesus Christ_ , dad." She panted, sighing heavily, running her fingers through her hair when her pulse was returning to a normal amount of beats per minute. _Fuck_ , she hated having a father who had stealth and the ability to scare that rivalled Batman.

" _Now_ what do you want?" Two surprise cardiac arrest inducing visits this week. This had to be a record. 

"I need you with me on a mission." Slade gruffly said. Emotionless as his outward appearance always was, so stone and steel, courtesy of his lessons, Rose was a master when it came to detecting deceit and that was definitely a lie. Like hell _Deathstroke_ needed her. 

"No, you don't." Rose switched her apartment's lights on and dropped her purse and keys gracelessly onto the couch before she told him,

"Go bother Joey, I'm sure he'd love for you to scare the shit out of him. I'm too tired to deal with whatever you're really here for." 

Clicking his tongue, Slade left the corner he'd resided in, taking only a few strides closer until she needed to tip her head back to meet his line of sight. He was wearing his suit, kevlar, swords, guns and galore, but not his mask, that was around his neck.

"Rose, I don't want you in or around Gotham for a while." 

"Don't be ridiculous, dad." Rose scoffed, rolling her eye, ready to brush it off until she realised by his expression, that he was dead serious. Her amused smirk faded.

"Fucking _hell_." She huffed, cheeks blown out. "Now what paranoid crap have you brewed up in your old age?" 

"The kid. Jason. He's a time bomb, and I don't want you to be around him." Slade didn't even ease into that. He just said it, uncaring of the blunt force. And she couldn't believe it was _this_ talk again.

"Dad, _stop_. I don't want to hear it." Rose pushed away from him with a dark expression but Slade caught her arm, thusly stopping her dead in her tracks.

"You _need_ to." Slade's gravelly voice came out incredibly stern, the way you could expect an overprotective father's to sound. Which is what he was.

"He's not some harmless stray puppy you should feel sorry for because it's had a whip cracked across it."

At that, Rose snapped defensively back,

"You think _that's_ what happened to him? Dad, he was beaten and-"

"I know what happened, _Rose_." Slade cut her off, annoyed. "I was there. I found him, remember? I know more about him than you, Harper, the shrink and you all think he can be saved but he _can't_. People live what they've learned, Rose, and guess what he's been taught?" That wasn't a question, not really, and Rose glared furiously at her father.

" _You_ taught him! You taught him to kill, dad."

"I didn't teach him a damn thing he didn't already know! He's been killing since he was a fucking child. Did you know he had his _parents_ murdered? I tried to _contain_ him."

Rose almost hit him, no matter that it wouldn't have accomplished anything. Not even the satisfaction of pain.

"And what went wrong? How did your _selfless_ masterplan fail?" 

"I underestimated Jason. I tried to minimise his destruction when I should have _killed_ him." It was the heat of the moment that he said that, Slade rarely let emotion get the better of him as he did then, and although part of Rose knew that, she still swung out at him. He caught her fist with ease, enveloping her in his hand.

"You don't fucking mean that, dad! You care about him too so don't pretend like you don't! Just cause you can't fucking process emotion-"

" _Rose_. You're not thinking logically. I don't want him to die any more than you do but I won't let him cause another  massacre when he inevitably snaps again."

" _What_?" Rose ripped her limb from his grasp. "You're not Batman, dad. You don't care if Jason kills a thousand people cause you're a killer too."

Slade's eye narrowed viciously on her. "It's a job for me. Jason kills because he _likes_ it. He _wants_ to. Or he just _feels_ like it."

None of that was true. Her father was completely fucking insane. He was thinking back on what Jason was like in Venezuela when he was hurt, but Slade only knew half the story. Slade wasn't there when Jason said that in the bathroom or when he always put his arm around her when she was sleeping. Her father knew _half_ of it.

"Get out of my home, dad." Rose growled, shivering with rage. Slade wasn't phased, however, he was steely again, like he always was. He turned to go but Rose caught him before be could. There was still one thing she had to get out there.

"And if you _hurt_ Jason or try to kill him like you think you should have, I'll fucking murder you, _dad_." That was a promise. Slade knew it as well as she did. 

* * *

 

Rose was on her toes today, Jason noted. She didn't reap half the joy she usually would from forcing him to go shopping with her and carry her bags. She ghosted through the isles and Jason caught her frowning to herself more than once. 

"Okay, what's wrong?" Jason abruptly asked when he paused out of the blue, shamelessly blocking the aisle. Rose, so deep in her thoughts, almost walked into him.

"Wh.. What?" She blinked, confused as if she hadn't heard him.

"What's wrong with you? You're moping around like a dying animal. You've made me come shopping with you, why aren't you enjoying the torture?"

"Oh, I'm just thinking about something." Rose inclined her chin and tucked a long lock of hair behind her ear as if she'd been caught red-handed for something she shouldn't be doing.

"What're you thinking about?" Jason asked, concerned when he could see it concerned her, whatever _it_ was.

"Nothing." She grumbled and moved past him, shoulder brushing on his. She completely dismissed him and that worried him more. Jason went after her, speedwalking to catch up to her quick pace.

"Rose, wait up." Adjusting her shopping onto one arm, Jason caught her hand and when she turned, he didn't let go. He was momentarily distracted by how warm her hand was in his.

"Seriously, what's wrong?"

Rose's eyes darted away for seconds then flitted back to his uncomfortably. Wait... Was it _him_ she was uncomfortable around? Jason let her go, her arm fell to her side with no resistance.

"Is it _me_?" His eyebrows knit and he didn't want to believe it but with Roy's behaviour yesterday, he wouldn't be surprised if she too thought he was going to go on a murder spree. He supposed he couldn't hold anyone accountable for that fear but that didn't mean he wanted them to think that.

"No, Jason. It's not.... Not really. I'm just...." Rose looked away again, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm tryna figure you out."

Next to what he'd been expecting, that answer surprised Jason, to say the least.

"What's there to figure out?"

She sighed, hands landing on her hips and chewing on her lip. Jason waited patiently for her to reply but after some while, it became evident that she wouldn't and another voice cut in before he could go further.

"Rose Wilson, as I live and breathe, you are a _miracle_ worker." Both Jason and Rose turned a fraction to realise the redheaded woman with glasses and a wheelchair was half a meter from them; Barbara, and with her was a blonde teenage girl wearing a loose grey hoodie with a pink bat symbol on the chest, holding a basket with some items already in it. Stunned, Jason stared at her in question. Who the hell was _she_?

"I've never been able to make Jason carry shopping for me." Barbara continued with a smile and Rose got over what had been bothering her before, outwardly at least. She returned the smile.

"He's a real gentleman if your dad is Slade."

"I bet." Nodding, Barbara finally acknowledged Jason's questioning gaze boring into the blonde and gestured to her. "Jason quit staring. This is Stephanie."

" _Stephanie_?" 

"Yepperdidoo, that's me. You're Jason, right?" The girl - _Stephanie_ extended what Jason assumed would be her hand, but it was a fist instead, stretched out to him.

"Sup, dude? I've heard tons about what an iron-clad badass you are." She grinned widely and with a certain amount of hesitance, Jason tapped his fist on hers. He wasn't nearly as enthusiastic as she was, especially when she set her excited sights on Rose beside him.

"And Rose-fucking- _Wilson_! It's an honour, man. I've made Babs tell me _all_ the deets on you." Rose as taken aback when Stephanie spoke to her, more so when the girl all but shoved Jason aside to capture her in a bone-crushing embrace as if they were familiars. Jason had never heard Rose squeak like that but found it to be cute.

"You're so fucking awesome, girl! Were you really trained by _Nightwing_?" Jason cringed at the name, the reminder that Dick ever existed, and while Stephanie was maniacally fangirling over Rose, he turned to Barbara, who watched with an amused smile.

" _Who_ is she again?" He jerked a thumb to the crazy blonde. 

"Stephanie Brown. I met her through Tim, she's filling in for him." 

"You mean she's a _cape_?" Jason couldn't help but seriously doubt that. That ball of energy and teen girl hormones couldn't be one of them. 

"She's training, Jason. If you want the full details, I'll tell you when we're not in a crowded store." 

"Right. Of course." He nodded to himself, recalling that although no one was paying them a speckle of attention, they were still in a public place. He hoped none of what Stephanie exclaimed were heard by someone who might look into it. _Not_ what they needed. He wondered how many of those people would actually care to know there was a cluster of masks among them. Fewer than you might think, everyone in Gotham had a dark secret or two.

"Are you feeling any better, Jay? You were awfully sick last I heard." Barbara asked him when she wheeled a little closer and he looked down at her, remembering with a start that she was still there. He must've zoned out, as usual. 

"Yeah, a bit." He didn't mention how Roy and possibly now Rose thought he was a time bomb. Or that he lost tracks of entire hours yesterday and slit a guy's throat. All minor details.

"Any word from Tim?"

"No. None." She shook her head, suddenly grim. As far as Jason understands, she hadn't wanted Tim to leave when he did and in his own opinion, it was fucking retarded of him to abandon his girlfriend and the mentally unstable nut case with her. Not that Jason would ever hurt Barbara, he'd sooner cut the rest of the Joker's name into his face, but... it just didn't seem like the right timing for Tim to go off. Especially when Barbara had asked him not to. Gotham needed Robin but without him, as usual, Barbara rolled her sleeves up more and got shit done. 

" _So_...." Barbara pursed her lips, once again she was smiling after a good mental shove that pushed her worries aside.

"You and _Rose_?" 

"Wh - _no_. No, no." Jason shook his head with an abashed expression and he may have a tint of blush on his cheeks. "Nah, we're just.... friends."

"Really?"

"Yes. Just _friends_."

"Shame. Rose is a nice girl. Not to mention she's gorgeous, skilled, dangerous when it counts, passionate, kind, and she _clearly_ has a soft spot for you...."

"Babs, you're crazy." Jason tried dismissing her since she was, in fact, a lunatic if that's what she thought. Jason had only ever had feelings for two girls; Barbara was one of them, the redhead he drooled over as Robin but he'd since come to realise it was nothing but a crush, a relic of the past he religiously held onto to keep telling himself he could still feel things. The second.... well, he wasn't so lucky that she'd feel anything remotely similar. It's not like he wanted to develop unreciprocated feelings for people, it just sorta happened. Plus, Jason was probably imagining these thoughts and feelings as he had for Barbara. He was delusional, after all.

"Alright, Jason, but know that denial looks ugly on you." Leaving him with that to brew over, Barbara guided her chair past him toward the girls, where Stephanie was bombarding Rose with a litany of questions coming out too fast to answer. Rose didn't get a word out between the lines.

"Steph, let Rose go. We gotta get home today."

"Oh, right, sorry." Stephanie apologised to Rose but grabbed her hand for one last electric handshake that almost tore her arm off. 

"It's really been an honour to meet you, Rose! Like, seriously, such a-"

" _Steph_ ," Barbara took her hand, reminding her that they needed to go. It was another ten or so minutes before they  actuated that since Stephanie had a subterranean level of questions that desperately needed to be answered. In her opinion, at least, whilst Jason wasn't so sure she actually needed to know the diameter of Ravager's roundhouse kick.

* * *

 

".... I went shopping with my girlfriend today. Like, my friend, who's also a girl." Jason explained in response to the shrink's question of what he'd done that day. And, of course, Olson was writing that answer down in the now familiar clipboard.

"Is she a good friend?"

"Her name's Rose, and yeah, I'd say so.... I think so. I mean, I've slept with her numerous times but that doesn't mean we can't be friends, right?" While he asked that, he turned his head to look at the other man in his armchair while Jason, as usual, was draped across the couch like a wet rag.

"Not necessarily. What makes you think you couldn't be?"  

"Well, someone asked me if we were together and I said no, then she started implying what a great couple we'd make and all that jazz. So I started thinking, does _Rose_ think we're a thing?" 

"Ask her." 

"I _can't_."

"Why not?"

"Cause - what if...." Jason sighed deeply when he couldn't find the wording, blowing his cheeks out and looking around the room for inspiration for a few seconds while he ran his tongue across his lip.

"What _if_ she says no? Then she might think that _I_ thought that - an' I don't. But then if she says yes, do I tell her that we aren't? I don't wanna hurt her. Plus, she said to me today that she was _trying to figure me out_. Whatever that means."

"Maybe it was your intentions that were confusing her. If I may, Jason," Olson leaned forward a bit, "from what I've observed, it's not unlike you to send mixed signals."

" _Mixed_ signals?" Jason quirked a brow. "Nah, that can't be it. Rose is really good reading people." 

"Jason, I trust you've heard the saying 'love is blind'?" Jason nodded - everyone had - and the shrink went on with whatever hypothetical nonsense he was again spewing.

"Apply it to this situation. Say Rose does have feelings for you but since you two have an established past relationship that doesn't involve intimacy, it may be difficult for her to decipher if that's changed."

"But... I'm not currently sleeping wither her. It _has_ changed."

"In that sense, yes, but has it gone to strict friendship or another form of relationship? A more... naturally progressive relationship where you're developing actual feelings for her, something that has proven to be difficult for you in the past, and it's in fact, _you_ who are confused and not her." 

Jason scoffed and grinned to himself at how stupid that was. He was not fucking confused and it was actually everyone else who was the problem.  Wasn't his fault if they couldn't see that as clear as it was.

"That's ridiculous." 

"How so?" 

"I don't _like_ people. I don't get attached to them. Emotions are for wusses."

The shrink raised a brow that suggested he didn't believe Jason. "You like Roy, don't you?" 

"I'm still _not_ gay, doc." Jason exhaled when he said that. Why was everyone trying to do the opposite of conversion camp to him? It's like no one wanted him to be straight.

"And I still didn't say you were." Olson said. "You know you can like someone platonically, don't you?" 

Shit. Of course, he did. Did this shrink think he was so stupid that the basic aspects of humanity were alien to him? He started this conversation by saying he and Rose were _friends_. _Platonic_ friends.  

"Yes, and I like Rose the same as I like Roy. As a friend." Believe it or not, Jason was quite aware that he was talking in circles. He wasn't so sure he knew what he was saying anymore when what he felt for Rose was not identical to Roy, but could that also be simply because he'd never slept with Roy? And since Jason had no plans to ever change that, he could only estimate that's where the differentiation came in. Or then maybe he should stop denying that.... _no_ , never mind. 

"Jason, why are you so opposed to relationships or opening up to people?"

At that question, Jason blew his cheeks out and scanned the ceiling for anything more interesting that Olson, which was everything. Even the string of dusty cobweb hanging down. But, unfortunately, Olson wouldn't move on unless he had something to write down.

"Cause I don't trust people and when I do, they leave me to get beaten and fucked.... and other fun stuff like that, for over a year. I mean, I know he's sorry but that stuff leaves a mark, y'know? Sorry doesn't make it all go away." Jason frowned to himself as he stopped to ponder it. He didn't care that the shrink heard that bit about Arkham, not since he was quite sure the man believed everything he said was just nonsensical madness spilling out. 

"Is that a metaphor for something? It doesn't sound like one." Olson observed when he'd already written down every word Jason said. "Someone let you get hurt like that?"

"Yeah... I mean, he didn't _let_ me but he.... I dunno. Just seems like he didn't do as much as he could have to prevent it." After that, a tick passed where Jason might have focused too intently on the sound of Olson's pen scrawling across the paper. He wrote quicker than he usually did and Jason was too lost in thought to see his next question coming,

"And was _he_ a friend or perhaps family? Most sex crimes against children are committed by someone they know."

"What - _no_!" Jason sat bolt upright when he realised what he'd made Olson think. He didn't know why the notion made his heart pound.

"Family didn't do _anything_ like that to me." Jason couldn't have said that anything faster. He practically yelled it.

"But someone did?" Olson arched a brow, looking Jason directly in the eye.

"I - _no_... I don't wanna talk about this." His tongue swept over his lip again, palms suddenly clammy. He didn't want to... He knows he brought it up but he didn't want to talk about it.

"It's fine if you don't, Jason. No one is making you." Olson said that gently, reassuringly, in the way would make people feel easy to breathe, but Jason stayed squirrely until he left.

It was dark when he stepped outside, going over the session in his head. How did they go from talking about Rose to talking about _it_? Fuck. Jason hated those things that reminded him. Things like, for example, arms closing around him, sort of similar to what happened next. Jason got a start when Slade stepped out of nowhere and grabbed him roughly around the middle.

"You're coming with me, kid." He grunted, already dragging Jason with him.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" To make him let go, Jason instinctively tried to hit him but somehow, both his arms were trapped by one of Slade's. Slade started hauling him down the alley against his thrashing.

"We're going for a little trip." Slade said, voice gritty through his teeth and Jason bucked against him, hit him where he could, but every blow bounced off.

"Slade, let me go!" Jason struck him - or tried to but when he was nearly free, Slade threw him into the wall. A hollow knock went through his chest and a burst of pain, but he didn't let himself fall, he pushed away from the bricks but by then, Slade had already pinned him. Jason pushed and pulled but he may as well be fighting Bane. _Great_. Slade had gone fucking insane!

"Quit strugglin', kid." He growled, pressing him deeper into the wall. "And maybe I won't hurt you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh damn... Whatever will Jason do?


	5. The Blacking Out

Slade slammed Jason onto a cold surface and started tying him down with straps, hitting him whenever he would struggle. This place wasn't familiar to him, he'd hardly seen what it was on the outside when the lunatic dragged him in, but he wasn't really that interested in finding out where so much as _why_.

"What _the hell_  is wrong with you?" Jason coughed raggedly from the gut punch he was just dealt and Slade loomed over him with a terrifying dark expression, and he knew better than to waste his time trying to escape the binds. He couldn't, not when Deathstroke did them. 

"Sorry, kid, can't let you do what you did in Venezuela again." 

" _What_? What the fuck? You've fucking gone nuts-" Jason jerked to get his arm free and Slade bruised him to the bone for that. He bit his lip to keep from making any noise of pain and was confused since the other didn't appear to enjoy hurting him but didn't refrain from it. 

"Slade, I _don't_ know what you're talking about." Jason tried convincing him but by the tightening yank of the strap across his legs, Slade wasn't caring.

"Kid, you're too dangerous to have loose.  You brought all of Gotham to its knees and your little support group doesn't seem to remember that." Slade was almost growling and Jason recognised this vibe and how he wore it. It was the way his former mentor behaved when he was trying not to think with emotion. He put himself into the role of a contract killer and not the person who saved him a few nights ago. 

"So you're gonna kill me?" Jason spat because why else would Slade be in this mindset if the didn't? He knew the mirakuru or whatever the fuck the serum was called caused psychosis but this didn't seem like that. 

"No. Not unless I have to." Slade was standing a meter away, a shadow cast across his face, making it impossible to read his thoughts.

"Then keep me tied to this  _fucking_  table?" Jason thrashed some more but to no reaction, not even a slap this time. And Slade didn't respond, staring down at him and his silence made Jason think he hadn't thought this all the way through. How _un_ -Slade like.  Impulses weren't his thing so was this a last resort in his deranged mind?

Realising he really didn't know what he was going to do next, not for certain, at least, Jason laughed a bit, shaking his head even if it wasn't the right move, not by a long shot.

"Oh, Rose is gonna be  _pissed_  at you." Okay, that  _definitely_  wasn't the right move but Slade didn't strike him for it, instead his fists clenched tighter but he must be well aware his daughter would gouge his remaining eyeball out for this. 

"Shut up before I staple your fucking mouth shut." Slade warned and Jason honestly couldn't be certain if he was serious.

"Slade, if you're smart, you'll get outta Gotham  _now_ , before Rose finds out."  Jason kept on taunting him despite how stupid it was to tick Slade off when he was the one who was free and Jason himself, was not.

"My daughter isn't going to be coming to your rescue."

"Didn't you also tell her to never come near me? Ha, how'd  _that_  work?" 

His teeth grit but Slade didn't respond, he reached into a compartment of his belt, hand coming back with an iPad in it. He took a kevlar glove off, unclocked it, and with a few swipes, he was showing Jason an article from two days ago. _FLYNN ALLEY MASSACRE: UNKNOWN ASSAILANT SLAUGHTERS DRUG RING._

Reading it, Jason blinked slowly, eyes flitting back to Slade above him.

" _Alright_.... Someone got hold of drug traffickers and punched their lights out? That doesn't have anything to do with this."

Slade shook his head, putting away the device, grim expression going nowhere.

" _You_  did that, kid."

" _What_?" He frowned, lips parting. " _No_. I'd remember if I-"

"Couple of days ago, you went out and lost track of several hours, you remember  _that_?" Yes, he did, quite clearly. Namely how confused he'd been and how after, he didn't think for a moment that there was any way he would not kill Colin. But... Surely he didn't do what Slade was saying. He  _would_  remember.

"It's called a psychotic episode, kid. You've had 'em before."

Yes, he'd had them numerous times in the past, those things Slade mentioned, but not for the past year and the medicine the shrink gave him was supposed to make them _not_ happen. So Slade was either confused or lying. 

" _So_..." Jason would humour the cracked old geezer if this is how he wanted to play it. "I'm fucking  _Hyde_?"

"That's split-personality disorder and take this _seriously_. You've got a serious problem, kid. You didn't recognise me." 

"You were there?" Jason's brows furrowed.

"How else would I know?"

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"Because those people deserved it but its _luck_ you were around someone who did. Imagine if Harper or his little girl or  _Rose_ had been there. Kid, you would have  _killed_  them." Slade allowed his thoughts to show enough for Jason to make out the sincere honestly in his eye. No. No, he wouldn't have hurt them! Jason would never have even tried. Slade was wrong because he  _had_  to be. 

"I  _won't_  let you do that."

Slade had to be wrong and Jason  _needed_  to get outta here before the old man offed him. He needed to..  _to_...

* * *

 

 _Jolts_... Groggily, Jason started realising jolts were going through him. One by one, in a steady rhythmic pattern. No... not jolts, footsteps.  _His_  footsteps. Was he walking? Over uneven terrain, it felt like. Panting, he hit something straight on and fell down it, onto the cold grassy ground, tearing fistfuls of it out. _What the fuck?_ The more aware he was becoming, the colder the air seemed to come, crisp and clear, not reeking of the city's pollution. 

Heavily, Jason blinked back what felt like a haze of thick fog clouding his brain to no burst of light. It was nighttime and there were trees everywhere. This was a forest. _No_... over there, in the distance, Jason could make out the sign that marked Gotham's city limit. How  _the fuck_  did he get here?

Realising it was a tree that he walked into, he backed into it, pressing his spine straight against the rough bark of its trunk and he glanced to his surroundings in rapid, paranoid movements. He was alone. No sign of that damn Slade high or low.  Turning his head back and forth, up and down, in this gloom, trees, stones and shadows were altered somehow into terrifying jagged shapes looming close by and nearing. As the confusion evaporated, familiar panic gripped his body, his breath became laboured; panting like an animal starving for water. 

Try as he desperately did, Jason didn't know how he got here and he didn't remember a thing since Slade. There were weights around his wrists and lowering his eyes to them, he saw that heavy straps encircled them, raggedly cut, drenched and mattered in mud and water. All of him was like that, filthy and soaked to the bone. He was shivering but hadn't realised he was cold until now. Actually, he was more like freezing but that was nothing that peeked his focus, not when he realised it wasn't only grime and ditch water sopping through his clothes. 

_Ageing blood._

A conflagration of crimson already drying to black, flaking but thick around his knuckles, streaking the length of his forearms then speckled over the rest of him. _What_. Did he do? He stared at his open hands, at his palms with a certain air of horror and still unable to remember what happened. God, he hoped and prayed this blood was Slade's, the super soldier who couldn't actually be killed and that Jason had hurt him when he somehow got away.

It was another bout of mortification at himself when Jason now realised Slade hadn't been wrong and this thing that happened, it had to be a psychotic episode because nothing else made sense. His shaking got consistently and gradually far worse until he couldn't hold still and every breath was a shuddery burst that strained the seams of his lungs. No - no, _no_! He didn't want these lapses of awareness to come back! They shouldn't be able to come back! He'd taken the medicine every day without flaw and it should stop this from happening. 

Without Slade's words, Jason could have assumed this was a fit of bad dissociation and not that horrible other thing he couldn't control.

 _No_. 

Jason ripped the restrains around his wrists off and they fell loose easily, he hurled them out of sight like they were acid and with fumbling movements, tried to find his comm but the damn thing had fallen out somewhere and since he wasn't wearing his suit, of course, he didn't have a spare. He needed to call Rose. Or Roy. Or Barbara or anyone because if he was on his own, he didn't want to think about what he'd do to someone innocent if another episode sunk its claws deep.  

Jason tried standing but apparently, he'd twisted his ankle or something pretty fucking badly since fire shot through the instant he put weight on it and with a strangled cry, he collapsed back onto his knees, ever trembling. By chance, his fingers came upon his tracker and he didn't think before switching it on, praying someone had noticed his absence and would stumble upon him. 

If he wasn't scared of another OD he would have popped all the Valium he had on him just to numb himself to the throes of panic careering through him, rattling on his nerves like a ghost with chains and a hall to drift down. 

Jason kept on pinching himself and leaving red scratches in his skin, ripping stands of hair out to ensure he stayed in the present and didn't allow himself to zone out again, but being on Slade's knife-edge last time hadn't stopped it from happening so could anything? And what the fuck was he gonna do? If the medicine wasn't working, would the doc just toss another prescription at him or force a straight jacket onto him and lock him up in Arkham? He was crazy, after all, and that's where the crazies went but he'd sooner die than be within that place's walls again. 

And then, in the mess of frantic thoughts and fearful panic, a horrible thought entered his mind. What... what if Bruce never saved him from the asylum because he knew Jason was so wrong and sick that he belonged there? Was that the big  _why_  that he'd been ignoring all this time? Robin would deny it, the Arkham Knight would transform it into fuel for his rage, and Jason? He didn't know but it hurt to think since he was trying to get better and it wasn't his fault that this fucking thing was happening all over again but everything he did under its influence, he was solely to blame. 

Out of his control, visions of the Arkham Knight doing horrible things to Rose and Roy and Lian and everyone he cared about ricocheted through his fucked-up brain then abruptly stunted to this sound,

"Jase? Sweet tap-dancing _Christ_ , what the hell'd you do, man? You look like shit." Hands on her hips, Robin had appeared before him with the blinding yellow lights of the batmobile behind her turning her into a silhouette, her shadow cast far and long over him. Jason had no fucking clue how he missed her coming so near or never heard the thunder of that massive engine the vehicle she came in had.

"C'mon, geddup." Stephanie grabbed his wrist and tried yanking him up, but he wasn't responsive to her attempts in the least. Of all the people who could defend themselves, this little girl had to be the one who showed up here. Jason didn't want to hurt her - she was like a kitten.

"Get the fuck away from me." Jason growled, it was a warning, and he slapped her hands away. But she didn't take offence, pursing her lips and rocking back on the balls of her feet, her domino mask disgruntled by her frown.

" _Sheesh_ , what the fuck happened, man? You're actin' like a bag of angsty cats." 

"I don't know what happened, which is the fucking problem." 

"Whaddya mean? Sure, it doesn't make sense that you're out here but-"

"This  _isn't_  my blood,  _Stephanie_ ," Jerkily, biting his tongue in annoyance, Jason nearly shoved his hands into her face when he presented them for her to see what matted them. Eyeing them for a moment, Stephanie's gaze travelled slowly to meet his.

"No doy. I think you'd be dead if it was, or certainly not as spritely as you are now." 

Dammit, this girl was stupid! Didn't she understand who he was, what he could do, and what he may have done during that time he couldn't account for? She was in real danger of his snapping again and she wanted to  _chat_.

"Y - you don't understand," Jason didn't mean for his voice to tremble and Stephanie cocked a blonde brow, totally unphased with everything unfolding before her.

"Look, man," she sighed, "you're freakin' out over nothing. So's Rose, BTW. She sent everyone to look for you when you didn't show up after wherever you went today and... she's my  _idol_ , I  _may_  be in love with her - well, her  _and_  Avril Lavigne - so I'd  _really_  like it if you came with me so I can win her approval - Rose's approval, not Avril's  -  for locating her tall piece of arm-candy before anyone else does...." Stephanie trailed off and barely keeping on track with what she said, Jason actually thought she was gonna shut up. Turns out she was taking a breath.

"And  _then_  over meticulously planned bump-intos over the months to come, I'll win Rose's favour, her trust and her respect  - and eventually, one day, her heart. I think we'd be the perfect blond badass power-couple to rock Gotham's streets. We've got a lot more in common than _you_ do with her. The only thing you two have going is _nothing_. Nada. Zip. _Zilch_. Just 'cause you're both attractive bitches doesn't mean you two should be a thing. Us plainer people need lovin' too." 

Lips parted, wide-eyed, Jason stared at her, motionless and silent, tryna piece together what the hell she just said and then figure out how her stupid fan-girl fantasies had any relevance to the moment. He actually forgot his torments completely for a moment, long enough to respond.

" _What_? You're  _twelve_." 

Clicking her tongue and scoffing, Stephanie tipped her chin up a fraction self-righteously, indignant over what he said, fingers digging into the hips she still rested them on. 

"I'm sixteen, bruh, an' you better believe I know how to make a lady scream my name." Stephanie was so sure of herself there that Jason couldn't even bring himself to say or think anything, continuously struggling to find the line between her being serious and her joking. So far, that turned up nada. Steph appeared to be 100% with him on everything thus far. 

"You better treat Rose well, boyo, or I'm gonna show her what she's missing." Stephanie ordered him, or  _threatened_ , regaining her grasp around his wrist while she did and she hauled him to his feet with surprising strength, taking note of his limp and supporting him against herself. Jason didn't want to and did not lean anywhere near her since her head barely reached his chin, he'd break her without noticing. Gritting his teeth, he managed his twisted ankle by himself while she mostly just hung onto his arm, thinking she was helping.

The panic attack passing, Jason knew with a clear head that he needed to get home.

Stephanie all but shoved him into the Batmobile and only then did it register that such a little girl drove this massive hunk of horsepower here by herself and by the way she positioned herself behind the wheel, she intended to do so again.

"Buckle up, buttercup, I like everything to be a blur when I drive so I can pretend I'm in a Millennium Falcon." 

"Should you be dri-"

Before those words could come out, Stephanie slammed her heeled foot down on the accelerator and took off like an arrow from a bow, enough momentum to throw Jason against the back of his seat with a hollow thud that went through his chest. Stephanie's seat was adjusted as forward as it could go so she could see over the dashboard but whether or not she could reach the brakes was dubious, but at this breakneck speed, Jason took comfort in knowing a crash meant instant death.

Tongue lolling out the side of her mouth in concentration as she took sharp turns back towards Gotham, Stephanie distracted herself at the worst time by switching the radio on and flicking through the channels until she found one she liked. Some sappy pop-garbage that made Jason's ears bleed blared and she danced along to it, swaying energetically from side to side.

 _"Hey, hey - you, you - I don't like your girlfriend! No way, no way - I think you need a new one!_   _Hey, hey - you, you - I could be your girlfriend-!"_

"This is mine and Rose's jam!" Stephanie yelled to him above the too-loud music with a cocky grin and he glanced at her from the corner of his eye, actually terrified of this girl right now.

"Except the 'I don't like your girlfriend part'. I mean, I don't mind  _you_ , per se, and you're not her girlfriend but I don't like you  _with_  her. Does that make sense?" Energetic, still dancing, Stephanie chatted to him in a good-natured way, like she wasn't pushing a hundred on the interstate she recklessly swerved into, almost ploughing into the side of a semi that would have left them looking like a pretzel of twisted iron.

No part of her phased, Stephanie urged more speed into the vehicle. 

"Total sense." Jason rigidly nodded and spoke through his teeth, all the colour in his skin gone and his hand was rather tight around his upper arm, bruising his bicep but he barely noticed the dull throb of pain. 

It wasn't _him_ who was the family's nutcase. This girl was insane and he was going to die in a fiery inferno when she inevitably flipped them over. He was prematurely braced for that.

"Robin to Robin, Jace," Stephanie began again and a single thought went through Jason's head;  _oh god, she's got more to say!_

"What was it like to serve with the big man?"

" _Bruce_?.... It was alright." That was definitely not the summary of it.  _Alright_  was not the reason he had a J burned into his face, but he wasn't about to go into it with Stephanie. Not like she'd understand anything about the less glamorous side of what they did.

"Timbo told me it was a _really_ sick gig."

"I'm sure those were his exact words."

"Uh-huh," She bobbed her head up and down exaggeratedly, gaze constantly darting from the road to Jason and back. "That's what he said. He also said you were the rebel Robin."

"I was the  _bad_  Robin." He corrected her. "Dick was...." Dick was the monster, but by the way Stephanie had spoken of Nightwing with praise the other day, she was probably among those who didn't know his true colours. Many didn't.

"He was what Bruce wanted me and Tim to be." Jason exhaled quietly with that, some part of the notion still weighing heavy. The notion of who you  _should_  be but weren't good enough to be....

She looked over at him, quiet for a second.

"Yeah, I get it." Stephanie finally said, her sudden change of tone suggesting she caught on with what he was thinking. "My dad wanted me to be something I couldn't as well. He called me the rebel and the failure,  _mistake_ , waste of sperm, and other  _nice_  things like that." She'd lost her excitement when she retold it and Jason didn't dismiss the hint of distance that came into her violet-tinted eyes. He decided he should tread carefully and pick his next words wisely.

"...... Who's your dad?" 

"Arthur Brown." Exhaling underneath her breath, Stephanie was hesitant to say, but she did it anyway and even elaborated for Jason. "Cluemaster. He's kinda sorta a supervillain....  _sorta_."

" _Oh_." Jason's brows met his hairline, features forming the definition of  _gape_. He'd heard of that guy.  "Really?  _Cluemaster_?"

Lips becoming a thin line, she nodded.

"  _Jesus_ , that must've been tough."

Humming indifferently, Stephanie shrugged one shoulder, but she didn't seem to have a witty comeback to insert there. Her fingers tightened on the wheel and Jason was increasingly aware how the raucous music seemed to die down into background static. It suddenly made sense why Steph liked Rose so much since they both had the supervillain dado down to a T. Which made him remember he had no idea where Slade was but he couldn't bring himself to focus on it.

"If it makes you feel any better, Steph, my dad is -  _was_  a meth head who tried to sell me to Maroni when I was a baby. I was actually conceived for that reason."

Stephanie gave a half-hearted scoff of disingenuous amusement.

"That's  _awful_. Guess we both come from a long line of fuck-ups, huh?"

"Tell me about it." Jason sarcastically said. "I accidentally OD-ed myself the other day."

"You think  _that's_  bad?" She arched a brow, smirking bitter-sweetly. "Try getting knocked up at fifteen."

Resting his head against his hand, his elbow on the door, Jason didn't know why the turn of this conversation was making him grin.

"Not for Joker's lack of tryin' that I ain't preggo. I think it's a biological thing."

"Ha! You got a really dark sense of humour, y'know that?"

" _Nyeah_...." He nodded. Best to let her think it was that. It wasn't a tick before Stephanie started rambling about something unrelated,  _again_ , and absently, he glanced out the window, briefly at first but then he noticed the on-the-nose armoured vehicle tailing them on the left. He frowned, staring at it in the rearview mirror. Something about that didn't sit well with him and the way the car sped up.... It didn't rest his taut nerves.

"Stephanie, pull over." Never moving his eyes from where they were fixed, Jason said that out the side of his mouth, and she looked at him with a confused  _hmm_?

"What?"

"Pull over." He repeated.

She wasn't getting it and proceeded to frown deeper like he was totally mad (he was, though). "Why?"

"Just do as I say -  _fuck_!" Jason leaned over sharply and grabbed the wheel from her, twisting it ungodly fast all the way left, barely swerving to miss the truck trying to run them off the road. The turn was razor sharp, Jason tried to regain control over the vehicle but before he could get the wheels straight, the damn thing flipped.

 _Fuck_! The airbags exploded at them, slamming the air from his lungs and he didn't remember when he put his arm across Stephanie to shield her from the windshield bursting inward with a spray of glass. Metal shrieked when it twisted and bent, the car rolled enough times to make Jason's head spin until they abruptly crashed into the railing. They nearly lurched over and for a heart-stopping second, Jason was afraid they would fall off the bridge. 

They were upside down, hanging by their seat belts and the batmobile rocked back and forth over the edge, threatening to send them hurtling to their death at any stray breath. With the screech of brakes, the jerks who did this stopped meters away and men with guns got out, their footfalls heavy and approaching. _Dammit_. Glancing over at Stephanie, Jason was relieved to see she wasn't senseless or  _dead_ , and was struggling to get outta her belt with the lock jammed shut.

"Move your _fucking_ arm, dude." She snapped at him and as if he'd only noticed it was there then, he stiffly pulled back the limb that was the only reason the airbag didn't kill her. Shards of glass encased his arm, severely bruised and bloody but from what he could tell, no damage he couldn't walk away from. 

Jason sighed, quite tiredly through his teeth when those armed assholes were a meter away because he really just wanted to go home but some higher power wouldn't allow it without a highway throw down. Who the fuck were these guys anyway? And he and Steph had to conquer the obstacle of getting out the fucking car before they could get any mileage in finding out.

A sea of glass pooled on the floor or... the roof, Jason grabbed a long jagged piece and with it, slit the belt across his chest, angled himself not to take a face full of the ground when he fell, onto his knees and immediately went about releasing Stephanie. _Except_ for some brainiac with a death wish grabbed his leg and yanked him out onto the road, a plan that was probably a good one in their minds before Jason and the wonder of steel-capped boots snapped their wrist to splinters. He howled, subject to the sheer agony of trying to restrain the Arkham Knight. Jason didn't have his suit on but it was day one stuff to never leave home without his trusty berettas. They came off his belt and spun in his hands, a practised automatic move that landed five men dead with each pull of the trigger. Puffs of red mist exploded between their eyes, that ringing true for all of them but the one who lost a knee. He shrieked, fell, tried to crawl away but Jason grabbed a handful of him, dragging him right back. Well, that was  _easy_ and he was left disappointed and bored. They don't make gunmen outnumbering him ten-to-one like they used to.

" _Who_  the hell are you and whaddya want?" He demanded, convincing him to talk when digging his fingers into the gushing lesion splitting the man's kneecap. To say his scream was bloodcurdling was an understatement.

" _Slade_  send you?" 

"Wh -  _no_. I - I don't know a Slade." The man's words stumbled with how fast and terrified he was to push them out. "Th - the others f - found out the Ark - Arkham Knight k - killed Mercer-"

"So.... This is _revenge_? For a sadistic child rapist?  _Jesus_ ," Jason shook his head in disbelief, chuckling in a less than sane way. These guys must be friends or fellow guards at Arkham, someone who knew the sick fuck he cut open. They weren't professional, extremely unso, easy to take down, easy to kill, easy to make spill the beans on this shit-show, no way this was orchestrated by someone who knew what they were doing. 

Never mind him because he  _obviously_  would never die, but these assholes could have killed Stephanie in that collision just 'cause their brains wired to their rectums told them this was a good idea. People were not losing their lives because of him unless it was because he wanted them to. And he  _wanted_  these men to. 

With a shard of glass from his blood-soaked arm, covered in surface wounds, and a slash beneath the man's ribcage, Jason had his entry point before the bastard ever screamed. He plunged his arm in, ripped through the diaphragm and had an unmistakable squishy rapidly pulsing organ in his hand. The Knight's cold black-blue eyes interlocked with the man's terrified ones, while Jason literally held his heart, and an understanding that death was upon him settled on his face. He didn't utter a single noise of pain when Jason's fingers forced into the tough muscle and tore the thing clean out. An immediate and profuse spray of thick oxygenated cherry coloured blood-drenched Jason, lapping around his feet when the body hit the floor.

Unphased, emotion-free, he looked through lashes drip-dropping with red pearls at the man, dropping his heart with the ease of discarding a piece of trash. It flopped onto the crimson-covered asphalt with a wet slap that made a smirk tweak his lips. That sound amused him.

And then he remembered Stephanie, that trainee-Robin girl who hadn't freed herself from the entrapment of the flipped car. He rotated on his heel, about to head to help her when from a distance, he heard tyres shredding  up the road and the roar of a motorcycle's engine, turning his head to the fast-approaching rider with the platinum mane whipping in her wake. Huh. About time she joined the party.

Rose didn't slow down as she got closer, if anything, she sped up but Jason made no move to step out of her path. Be it stubbornness or the belief she wouldn't run him over, he stood there, in place, watching her without the fear of being killed in a hit-and-run.  Last minute, Rose took a hard right, leaping from her steed as it went over and with a spray of sparks, crashed into a survivor who was trying to crawl away. He splattered like a bug on a windshield, another thing that was amusing to Jason.

What a babe Rose was.

"What the fuck happened to you?" She asked when Jason was thinking that thought about her, sweeping her windblown hair back and sauntering over. She wasn't angry but she also wasn't happy. It was concern over why he vanished that she was badly hiding.

"I ran into your daddykins." Jason told her when she stopped a foot from him.  _Man_ , she was hot when covered head-to-heels in enemy blood and biking leather. 

"An' he had some ideas whether or not I should proceed to exist. We had _conflicting_ opinions."

"Oh my  _God - h_ e didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Little bit."

Exhaling forcefully, Rose raked her fingers through her hair a second time but with rage on her face. Slade was dead. Haha, he was so fucking _dead_.

"I'm gonna fucking murder him." Rose viciously snarled, already spinning around to presumably go make herself into an orphan but Jason caught her hand before she got far. She didn't rip out his grasp but gave him a sharp look.

They met each other's gazes, silence reigning dominant for a breath before,

"Before two bone can you help a bitch out?!" Came the shrill request-scream from the upturned batmobile and Jason nearly left a bruise on his face with the forehead slap. He'd forgotten Stephanie was still in there.

"I'll get her." Exhaling through her nose, Rose went, reluctant to volunteer but she knelt by the car and crawled in. Jason followed her, R-rated things going through his head to see her bent over. His current disdain toward her dad might be fuelling this.

"Need a hand, Rose?" Jason asked, gazing at the place she went and she gave a gruff no, reappearing soon with Stephanie in tow.

The moment Rose was standing, Stephanie threw her arms wide apart to crash them around her bruisingly. Surprised, Rose hesitantly lowered her hands around the far smaller girl while Steph spoke multiple variations of thank you and I'm a big fan into Rose's chest, muffled by how hard she was pressing her face against Rose's sternum. Jason gave a quiet scoff, rolling his eyes.

"It's okay, Stephanie." Rose assured, no doubt seeing a girl who was relieved to be alive after that crash but being aware of Stephanie's yandere-like obsession with her, Jason knew she was being a perv right now with her head pillowed between Rose's boobs.

"Iloveyousomuchgirl! You'reawesomeandIwannabejustlikeyou-" Most of what Stephanie said was one big word squashed together and Jason made out one-fiftieth of it. Awkwardly patting the top of Stephanie's blonde mop, Rose sent Jason a desperate glance but he wasn't going to help her. Nah, he was enjoying this too fucking much. To show her it, Jason gave a wicked grin, crossing his arms slowly across his chest with all the time in the world. 

Rose didn't ask why Slade did what he did as Jason could guess she was quite aware the old man had his paranoia about him and what he might do. It was coming back to him again, refreshing in his head, the lapses of awareness that made his skin tingle and no question, this couldn't be ignored. He wasn't doing this before that new medicine came along, so maybe that fed into this? It was hit or miss with drugs of this sort, just like Roy told him. Jason was praying it could be as simple as that because that meant there'd be an easy cure.

After some while of trying,  Rose managed to pry Stephanie off her as politely as she could and wore a forcible smile to meet the girl's wide starry eyes with, her grin reaching her ears. Jason was certain he saw giant animated hearts flashing in Stephanie's eyes, her hands and fingers intertwined like she was praying to a goddess. In her kooky head, she probably was.

"Glad you're not hurt too bad, Jason." Rose came back over to him, Stephanie a stride behind and dancing on clouds. "I got really worried." 

And she didn't know the half of it. Jason wondered how much worse it would be once she did. She wasn't like Slade, she didn't think the same as him but Jason entertained the worry she'd find the same solution to the problem he was bringing up.

"Sorr-" The last letter of Jason's apology was muffled by Rose's lips pressing against his all of a sudden. She needed to stand on her toes to reach him but still, she could take his breath away.... literally, the surprise move made his lungs freeze up as if filled with rocks. As was back in the glory days, the softness of her mouth fried his brain for seconds before he gathered any wits about himself at all, but not the smart ones that would have done anything but kiss her back. 

He did. The grudges against Slade immediately flooded away and he kissed her since she was _Rose_ and it was amazing. Just like he remembered but maybe sweeter,  he wasn't sure what made it that way but he might love it. At some point throughout the transaction, Jason's lashes fluttered open and the same instant, his eyes locked hard on Stephanie giving him the thumbs-up and mouthing encouragements. 

Noticing he was looking away, Rose broke off him to see what it was but by then, Stephanie had reverted to normal. Seriously, what was this girl?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took such a long time to get up (long for me, anyway) school's really been kicking my ass but since I'm really sick right now I had a window to post.


	6. The Mercenary Walks Into A Wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles* okay, here we go.

_When the kid asked to be trained by him,  Slade made it perfectly clear from day one that he would not pull his punches or refrain from hurting him during sparring matches just because legally, he was a child. He'd understood that, it hadn't been a problem he'd said, and it had immediately taken the weight off Slade's shoulders, no matter what he did during training. Which is why, at first, it bore no effect on him to send the sixteen-year-old into a wall with a bloody smack. The sound was gut-wrenching but Jason was fine, he was sure. Jason never stayed down for long, never really got injured and Slade waited for him to get off all-fours and counter him._

_"Off the floor, kid. You'd be dead in a real fight at this rate." Slade taunted but he would call it encouragement._

_Panting, ignoring the direct order, Jason remained on his hands and knees, small quivers vibrating through his arms and although his head was bowed, Slade saw the string of thick blood he spat out. His breathing was off, too shallow, too quick, and that backlash of anger he expected didn't erupt. It always came up with Adeline that Slade's paternal instincts were a nautical mile off and he'd agreed since it was true (example one, teaching your two and five-year-old sons how to sword fight with real metal) so it couldn't have been that which made a tiny smidge of worry to dislodge from his uncaring nature. He didn't care if the kid was hurt. He didn't._

_He waited across the room with his arms folded, tapping his fingers against his bicep in a nameless pattern. The kid raggedly coughed up another bout of blood, speckles of it falling like raindrops to stain the ground and when one minute - no more, no less - was up, Slade caved with a sigh and went to kneel by Jason, slotting his hand beneath his chin to raise his head. The kid's teeth were pink, that he revealed when they were bared and his eyes had gone from their natural dark blue to nearly black._

_"Kid, where's it hurt?" He patiently asked but what's that saying about the road to hell? Slade had no idea when or where he got it from, but in the wisdom hindsight, it became crystal clear Jason had baited him close enough to not be able to block the knife. It was dull, yes, but didn't have any difficulty passing through the plates of his armour and shredding his guts up. No hesitation, Jason plunged it deep but didn't stop at the hilt, some primordial rage he tapped into compelling him to go forth until he left the knife, wrapped his fist around whatever he could, and tore it out._

_Slade had gutted numerous men and women (he doesn't discriminate) but seeing your own intestines ripped out had a different sort of mental stain to it. To the literal meaning of the phrase, it was stomach churning. His healing factor, impressive though it was, didn't mean he didn't feel anything, he very much acknowledged the flare of pain and how it hurt like a bitch on fire, but a muted grunt was the only noise he'd give before he kicked the kid into a wall. Or tried to, he dodged the blow but Slade managed to catch him nonetheless, holding his wrists in a single hand while he tried stemming the gushing tear across his middle with his free hand. One glance and he could tell it was a fucking mess._

_Examining it, he hissed through his teeth. Shit, that hurt. That really hurt. If his own kids never saw his fleeting side of sympathy again it was Jason's fault. Gritting his jaw till teeth chipped, Slade pushed the guts back where they belonged when they were sliding to freedom and dug out the knife while he was at it. Knife was a generous word, at best it was a shiv that looked made out of a sharpened piece of plastic. Easy to carry around, easier to conceal._

_As if he hadn't pissed him off enough, Jason kicked Slade in the ribs, his boot bouncing off and he would only respond to by lifting the kid off the ground, elevating him by his arms to a point and distance where the worst he could do was squirm. And that he did._

_"I swear to god, kid, I will send you back to Gotham if you don't stay still," Slade warned him, the tone of voice an irritated growl, and Jason tried kicking him again. Except he couldn't quite reach but it sure as hell didn't stop him trying._

_"So send me back! I don't need you!" Jason snapped aggressively and Slade couldn't help but wonder if he actually believed that. He wasn't old enough to buy cigarettes (didn't stop the underage smoking)  how the hell did he think he'd survive a day on his own now that numerous mob bosses across Venezuela had him on their kill list?_

_"I get that you're a teenager and all that, but do not try this rebellion shtick with me. I ain't your father." Slade wasn't having that at all, not since his daughter was around the kid's age and causing considerable problems of her own. Wasn't it last month that Rose carved her own eye out her skull as a deranged gesture of undying loyalty to him? Yeah... no. That didn't work for him and Slade didn't think it was a mistake to institutionalise her. Not Arkham. Never Arkham but a sanitarium he actually trusted would help her._

_He had to go see that she was any better soon but couldn't if the kid insisted on giving him trouble. Taking Jason with wasn't an option since Slade didn't really want to think about what the outcome of Rose and Jason in the same room might be._

_"I'm not rebelling and I don't need a fucking dad - you're just bitter 'cause you lost!" He gave another failed attempt of kicking and Slade watched him and his useless efforts from the corner of his eye, a single brow arched a fraction. Oh, so he lost? One of them was restrained and not presently touching the ground but sure, they could have different opinions as to who the victor was._

_"Jason," he sighed, at the end of his tether, "I'm trying to teach you how to control yourself-"_

_"Slade - if you were any good at the teaching thing then Ravager wouldn't have gotten fucking blown into a fucking gory mess!" Jason bit back at him viciously, his untameable anger spewing out like a spitfire, and as if running smack-bang into a wall, Slade paused trying to explain anything, watching him warily now._

_Relentless, Jason's murderous glare fixed hard on him, unwavering and furious._

_"Whatever, kid." Turning away, Slade dropped him back onto his feet with a jolt. "Go get that blood rinsed off." He ordered and dismissed Jason to his own devices whether he wanted it or not. Slade needed a second to himself so he could staple his fucking guts back into his abdomen and collect his thoughts._

_That wasn't the first time he considered showing up at Wayne's doorstep without explanation and the opening line of,_

_"Take your fucking kid back."_

_But thus far, he hadn't. He didn't know why and he wondered about it while he sat in the dark vacant hallway with his back against the wall, hand loosely covering the dishcloth soaking up his blood. It had begun to dry in the hour or so since he sent Jason off and the partings of flesh were rejoining, but it'd leave a scar of some sort. Not an issue. What was an issue, however, was that extent of sheer brutality the kid exploded into. It exceeded his normal levels of murder lust and that had Slade a little bit... worried._

_And there was one key reason why. A singular sole reason._

_He wouldn't forget how Grant started showing similar signs of instability as a child and Slade didn't step in. He never did a thing to help his son in the ways he needed and how did that end? That's right. Grant was dead, gunned down like a dog on a mission gone terribly awry._

_Grant's blood was still warm on his father's hands, splashed across his arms and his chest. Being half blind didn't mean he didn't see it every day.... The heartbeat where everything was fine, the bangs and the scream, the splatter of red.... And now he saw the same warning flags in Jason, that deadman's switch he could prevent from ever being pushed._

_You could say he was trying to rectify past wrongs by putting all this time and energy into Jason, things he should be putting into his remaining children, but quite honestly, Grant was only dead because of him so arm's length was safest for Rose and Joe._

_Arm's length did not work with Jason, however, the kid needed physical restraint and lots of it._

_"Hey," was the low, quiet voice coming from beside him and Slade's one working eye rolled slowly to look at the very person he'd been ruminating about; Jason, settling opposite him with his back sliding down the wall, his gaze downcast. He'd gotten changed, the blood-soaked clothes were gone and he appeared to have rediscovered at least pieces of his sanity._

_It seemed he was nervous, Jason fumbled with his hands, rubbing his palms together until the first thin layer of skin was wearing away. Slade didn't say anything, waiting for the kid to take the first words so as to properly determine what his current mental state was._

_"Listen, I... I'm sorry about what I said." The kid was mumbling, his chin tucked almost into his chest. "A - about Grant. That was really shitty of me."_

_Exhaling, Slade pressed the cloth tighter against himself with the forceful breath._

_"It's fine, kid."_

_"It isn't. I shouldn't have-"_

_"What you said is true." To himself, in the silence of his own head, Slade had admitted that more times than there were numbers in existence but never aloud. It took Jason aback. Slade turned his head away, profusely chewing on the inside of his cheek until blood blossomed on his tongue. Saying it had twice the impact of thinking it._

_Nipping on his lip, Jason didn't argue there. He knew the story which meant there was no argument he could raise. Slade didn't want him to deny it, anyway, he'd done that enough already._

_"I know I'm not Grant," Jason began after some time, not all his timidness yet gone but he gained an ounce of sureness as he spoke._

_"And I'm not asking you to be my dad. Trust me, I don't want a third one.... but maybe you can still try with me? I don't actually wanna go back to Gotham and I wanna be better than Bruce in a fight so I can beat him. Him and Nightwing." His tone dropped an octave lower into the bitter darkness the topic Nightwing always brought up in him._

_"That's ambitious, kid," Slade remarked since it had taken him forty years to reach a point where he and Batman were on equal grounds. But what the heck, Jason was welcome to try. Besides, denying him what he wanted meant he'd go after it with someone else. Someone more dangerous who'd have no regard for his safety. Like Grant did with H.I.V.E._

_"But we've already made that agreement. So long as I get my paychecks we're good."_

* * *

 

In a previous life, before tonight, the only boy Slade had ever regretted his decisions concerning was his son, Grant. Not Joe  _just_  Grant. Except now it was Grant  _and_  Jason, but Jason was possibly higher up on that list since Grant was yet to do this thing that was now causing a major issue.

As if to drive home a point he was already deathly aware of, a wall came out of nowhere.  _Smack_. Ow. How  _hysterical_. Deathstroke walks into a wall... that might be the opening line of a joke he'd be bearing the brunt of for some time to come. Feeling out the rough bricks of the wall, Slade traced his hand down it as he took slow steps. The blood on his face was beginning to dry, like hellish tear streaks down his cheek, matting his beard. As soon as he regenerated and regained his sight, the kid was dead meat.... Or  _maybe_  Slade wouldn't kill him - he didn't think he could bring himself to, despite Jason  _gouging_  his fucking eye out - but this was just another in a series of examples why the kid  _had_  to be contained. 

One moment he'd been safely strapped down, the next the kid ripped and tore, dislocated whatever he had to free himself and succeeded in doing it,  _somehow_ , no matter what Slade did to stop him. 

And that's when he started thinking Jason's previous psychotic breaks had always had key elements or a significant trigger to launch them. In the past, a common tripwire had been a severe enough panic attack or spiking stress levels. It had even been caused by a scar reopening once or twice and on those occasions, calming him down had been the whole day's ordeal. Slade had physically restrained him more than once. 

But without fault, Jason had  _always_  remembered what he did during the episodes.

Not only had there been absolutely no trigger or forewarning, but Jason far exceeded his previous levels of aggression. He was aware of himself during that last episode and that surprised Slade somewhat, given how that certainly wasn't the case in Flynn Alley. Jason knew Slade's name, called him by it, and mentioned Rose, too. 

Jason was quite knowing of what he was doing but the question lay, did he remember after? Slade would have to find him to be versed in that and heaven knows, that task would be a world easier if he wasn't completely blind right now. Things around him were becoming grey blurs against inky blackness with an only few distinguishable features but at least he was healing. Be it slowly. 

If nothing else came of this, it should prove to Rose that being within ten miles of the kid was dangerous, never mind being in his bed. Slade never understood what his daughter's fixation with Jason was only that she inherited her terrible taste in men from her mother.  

 _Dammit_ , Slade angrily thought to himself when he tripped over something laid out in the alleyway and stumbled to catch himself. Simultaneously, he  _really_  wished Wayne hadn't fucked off when he did since if he  _hadn't_ , maybe Slade wouldn't be sorting out  _his_  kids. He had his own kids - a mute, a half-blind, and a supervillain - he really  _didn't_  need Wayne's brats on his lap yet here he was. When this was over and done with, he really needed to draw a line that established who  _was_  his problem and who  _wasn't_.

Rose; his problem. Grant; no longer his problem. Joseph; his problem. Grayson; no one's problem. Drake; Wayne's problem. Jason;.... well, he'd get back to that later. He'd known the kid since he was fifteen and arguably very pitiable, and the years since then was nearly six..... He'd developed  _something_  towards the kid that wasn't exactly disdain.

It took a longer period of time than he was happy with for colour to return to his sight as smudging outlines, but it was enough to get back to his HQ, grab a rifle and go after the kid with the aid of the tracking device he'd once punched into him. Jason had too many scars to wonder about the one tracing an inch of the length of his collarbone.    

Along the way, Slade's sight restored itself to the best it would get and he located the kid by the wreck of the batmobile, occupying himself by slaughtering a group of gun-wielding men. Observing it happening from a notable distance, through the scope of his rifle, he dully thought about how pathetic those men were. Seriously, it took his former protege less than thirty seconds to have them either dead or incapacitated. 

It wasn't even that Jason was highly trained in the art of murder... he  _was_  but those gunmen were also  _really_  bad at this.

It was around the point that Jason ripped a guy's heart out with his bare hands that Slade started taking aim. Not the head. Not the chest. No kill shots but a bullet in the back of the knee would render him rather harmless for the foreseeable future. He didn't wanna hurt Jason but there wasn't a whole lot of better options.

And  _then_  Rose appeared and Slade immediately hesitated, finger slackening on the trigger, especially when his daughter got closer with a look of fury. Fury directed at her father, he knew by reading her lips.  _Great_. Fan-fucking-tastic.

If it wasn't bad enough, if everything hadn't already added to a difficult situation, Rose kissed the kid. Quite out of nowhere. Blowing his cheeks out, sighing from the very bottom of his lungs, Slade lowered the ready gun and held his head in one hand, fingers wrapping around longs strands of hair.

Oh,  _why_  couldn't he just be alright with emotionally traumatising his daughter by shooting the current object of her desire in front of her? This pause went against every aspect of his nature and his profession. He was a terrible father so why couldn't bring himself to do it? Dammit..... He put it down to getting soft.

Not only that, but Slade seriously needed to rethink how to go about this.

* * *

 

He'd missed this. Jason had missed waking up with Rose at hand's reach just not realised how much until he had it again. To come around to her comforting and soft scent, quiet comfortable breathing.... it was manna he didn't deserve. In the early hours of the morning, running his fingers through her snowfall hair while she dozed, he could almost forget he'd confined himself at his HQ, in a holding he reserved for his involuntary visitors.

He refused to give information about the blackouts to anyone. Rose being around him was sorta okay since she was meta-ish, like Slade. She could tear him down the middle with ease. Rose didn't know why Jason locked himself in here but she'd forcefully joined him. He'd had  _no_  choice in the matter, not when she came in and  _certainly_  not when she took her clothes off. It was practically rape what happened after that.

Yawning, Jason adjusted the blanket around her then tightened his arm to keep her from falling off the bunk. That'd not be nice. He had this theory where if he simply stayed in this holding cell, where a blackout meant he'd only have himself to hurt, then he'd never have to tell Roy or Rose about them. Tentatively, he'd allowed himself to love them both but they'd put him back in Arkham the moment they found out. He didn't trust them enough to be transparent. Once, Jason had laid all his faith in Bruce and where did that land him?

Here. It landed him  _here_....  _But_  looking down at Rose nestled into him, it wasn't the worst place to be. At least not right now.

" _Man_ ," Jason's eyes darted from admiring every inch of Rose's flawless features to Stephanie, sighing wistfully through the barred cell door.

"She's so  _hot_  when she's asleep."

By now, Jason had learned that Steph had a habit of coming and going randomly, appearing at odd hours in places - like Jason's HQ - that she should have no access to. Last night, he and Rose dropped the girl off with Barbara and looky-look where she turned up.

"Why the  _fuck_  are you here?" Jason exhaled when he sat up, cover falling around his middle and Stephanie didn't reply, making him quite sure the deliberate angle of her gaze meant she was undressing Rose in her head. Defensive, Jason pulled the blanket up to his lady friend's shoulders.

With a shake of her head, Steph snapped out of it, whatever  _it_  was.

"I'd get dressed if I was you, man. I called my boy Roy over."

"You did  _what_?"

"The poor dude was sleepless since he didn't know where your ass was so I let him know." Stephanie pursed her lips when a thought entered her brain and Jason tried to figure out A, how she found his hideout? And B, where the ever loving fuck did she get Roy's cell number? Or did she go directly to his place?

"He's kinda fit, though, right? Roy. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when that redheaded vision opened the door," so she  _did_  go to his house, "and now I come here, find you've screwed my queen, I realise that was the Silver City and this is hell."

Jason threw a pillow at her but it bounced off the bars.

" _Oh my God_ , Steph!  _Stop_  hitting on everyone around me! And you do know Roy was  _your_  age when you were  _born_  and he's got a five-year-old daughter, don't you? At  _best_ , Roy's your uncle." 

"Chillax, Jase. I'm window shopping." Stephanie gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "Just cause I'm looking doesn't mean I'm gonna take it home with me."

Scowling, Jason pulled a face. "Get that fucking image out my head and get lost already."

"It's kinda unfair that you've got all the hottie friends, though."

Turning sideways, Stephanie did a perfect job ignoring everything he just said and came between the bars, nearly getting stuck but persistence got her through, a fete only a small bodied being could accomplish.

"Get  _out_ , Stephanie," Jason growled as she neared.

"Calm your tits, Jason." Steph grabbed a handful of his discarded clothes off the ground and tossed them at him. Catching them in one hand, he muttered something and started pulling his tank top on. Respectfully, she didn't gawk at his scars but made up for that in typical Stephanie mannerism.

"So, what's it like?" She asked and Jason glanced at her to find her brows raised and a sinful smile.

"What's what like?"

"Shagging the queen,  _obvi_."

" _Stephanie_!" Beyond uncomfortable, Jason pulled his belt through the loops and tried hitting her with it, but she was quick to jump out of his reach with a sly giggle.

"Christ on a broomstick, you're so  _sensitive_! Get any more so and they'll be advertising you for Loreal skin care products."

"What  _the hell_  is wrong with you?" He demanded as quietly as he could, his breath hissing in the attempt of not waking Rose.

"Just tell me and I'll go." Stephanie persisted with the perverted questionnaire as if seeing nothing wrong with it. It was  _only_  among the most private and intimate matters there was that she was prying into.

"How does she like it? On you or under you? Raw or rubber? Rough or gentle? Talking or just fucking? And is. There.  _Bondage_?" Stephanie was chewing on her lip, light in her eyes and she really expected him to answer yes or no to those. Except she probably wanted detail as well. No explosion or bonfire could make Jason feel heat in his face the way he did then.

"Uh... No to all of that." Jason replied once he could again get his tongue to move past the mortification.

"Mine and Rose's sex life doesn't concern you,  _Stephanie_." He tried and tried hard getting that across to her but somehow, she wasn't getting it. Jesus, did he have to spell it out?

"Aw, c'mon, Jason! I need something for my fanfic-"

"Just answer the  _fucking_  questions, Jason." Both Steph and Jason got a start from Rose grumbling that in irritation when they'd both thought she was sleeping but no, she was looking like an angry burrito with the blanket cocooning her. Rose  _wasn't_  a morning person.

Stephanie's confidence was all but gone, replaced by the shock and shame of her idol hearing all that. They could have left that uncomfortable conversation there and let the girl slink away but Rose decided to satisfy her curiosity without letting Jason stop her, which he would have  _gladly_.

"I vary between on and under. Yes, rubber, we don't want kids. We've found a medium between rough and gentle. Sometimes, we discuss the details of a mission. And no for bondage, Jason doesn't like restraints during sex and I think it's bootless. Any  _other_  questions?"

"Uh... n -  _no_." Stephanie's voice transformed into a remarkably small version of itself while Rose watched her and Jason practised his ability to completely hide his face in his hands.  _Jesus Christ._  Now that she had the information, it didn't seem like Stephanie wanted it. At least not from the horse's mouth.

In a flash, Stephanie had her phone out her pocket and raised her brows animatedly as if reading something.

"Freckles texted. I better go let him in." How  _fortunate_  that timing was. Stephanie spun on her heel and fit through the bars with ten times her previous speed, disappearing down the hallway with rapid footfalls. Carefully,  _slowly_ , Jason's eyes flitted to land upon Rose, sitting with her knees loosely to her chest while with a hard expression, she was staring after that crazy girl. 

In absolute silence, he finished getting dressed, his subtle movements never once catching Rose's attention. She made no attempt to pull her own clothes on and while normally, he wouldn't object to that, he wasn't sure Lian's innocent little girl eyes were ready for the questions it would raise when she came around the corner, a few strides ahead of her father and holding the doughnut Roy probably grabbed her on the drive over. It was eight am, he didn't have time to make breakfast but it didn't look like Lian was complaining over the sugar.

Stephanie had her arm through Roy's, walking in tune to his steps and the archer allowed it for some reason Jason couldn't begin to understand. Perhaps he was too busy asking himself  _why_  when his bottle green eyes went over the blanket being the only thing Rose was wearing, Jason buckling his belt, and then there was the barred door he was standing beside.  _What_  was written across the lines on his forehead.

"Why - wha - is there a reason behind this that I should know?" Roy asked, simultaneously covering his daughter's eyes and all the questions she already had her mouth open to ask.

"I don't know," Rose said, still clearly irritated about being woken up and Stephanie stepped behind Roy, burying her face between his shoulder blades as a testimony to her lack of understanding concerning what boundaries were. Roy had a kid, he was used to children clinging onto him... little did he know these things were not one and the same.

"Jason decided this cell is his new home."

"....  _Why_?" Roy arched a brow, meeting Jason's reluctant gaze. He'd purposefully and very intentionally never wanted Roy to find out about this, despite the inevitably of him coming here. It was either that or someone like Rose would tell him. Christ, he hated people caring about his wellbeing since it got in the way of caring for theirs.

"I like it." Jason lied and by the increase of surrounding frowns, no one was buying it from the get-go. 

"Daddy," Lian cut in with her sweet heart-melting squeaky voice. "Why is Rosie not wearing clothes?" 

"Cause, kid," Stephanie got down on one knee, at Lian's height and a hand landing on her shoulder, launching into an explanation before Roy could answer her.

"There's this thing called  _sex_. It's when two people get all naked and-"

" _Stephanie_!" No one could say if Roy, Rose, or Jason exclaimed that the loudest but it was all in unison, a synchronised attempt to spare the five-year-old's innocence. 

"- and that's how  _babies_  are made - that's how  _you_  were made!" Roy tried to stop Steph from ruining his daughter any more than she already had but the blonde was quick to dodge him, ducking beneath his arm and bolting down the hall like fucking super Sonic with a maniac laugh ringing after.

"Your daddy will tell you more, Li!" She yelled as she went, footfalls transforming into thunder the likes of which no non-meta should be able to accomplish. 

" _Daddy_?" Lian tipped her head back and regarded Roy with big teary eyes as if the few things she'd already been told were enough to traumatise her eternally. The poor thing looked mortified the likes of which most children did when they got any inkling about conception. 

"Pumpkin," Roy sighed, kneeling down to her line of sight, "ignore that crazy girl, okay? She-"

"Is that really where babies c - come from? Is that where I-"

At some point during all this drama, Rose had gotten her clothes back on and allowed herself out of the cell while she tied her hair into a ponytail.

"I'll take it from here, Roy." She said and scooped Lian off the ground, balancing her on her hip and her presence immediately calmed the child the likes of which Roy's couldn't. Drama was inherited from her mother, Lian buried her small face in Rose's shoulder and amidst her hair, exhaling deeply into it.

"It's horrible, Rosie." She expressed and Rose hummed understandingly, brushing soothing stripes into her back.

"I know, baby, I know." She soothed, casting Roy and Jason a look they could work on deciphering together while she swept away, telling Lian something about the cartoon they were going to go watch on her phone. Chewing his lip, Roy turned on his heel, back to Jason just about the moment he pulled the iron-barred door shut again with a clang of metal on metal.

"What's this about, Jay?" Roy asked with a gesture towards the cell and the grating separating them. Goodness, he certainly put his daughter's trauma aside quick.

"It's nothing, gingersnap," Jason responded as casually as he possibly could, trying hard to keep it to himself what was wrong. Burden your friends and soon you won't have any. That or it was Arkham. 

"It's clearly not  _nothing_." He retorted but somehow did it nicely, motioning to the white bandaging wrapped tightly around Jason's forearm, perfectly white say for the patches of drying brownish black patches of old blood.

"What happened?" 

" _Nothing_." Repeating himself, Jason uselessly lied but of course, he had to, since the truth was the big thing he really needed to avoid with Roy.

"Nothing didn't do that to your arm, Jason. Stephanie said someone ran you off the road." 

Clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, Jason rolled his eyes. Stupid girl. They could have kept this entire thing secret from Roy and not have him prying into things that may end badly for him. Badly since he was so  _easy_  to hurt. Anyone could do it. He wasn't outstandingly strong, definitely not able to overpower Jason, twisting his arms back far enough would snap them clean off -  _what_. No. What the  _fuck_  was he thinking? Canines sinking into his lip, Jason shook the repulsive thoughts of violence roughly from his head. Where did they come from? He  _didn't_  want to hurt anyone, especially not Roy. Never him.

"Jason, if something's wrong you need to tell me." Roy said, giving Jason a start with how close his voice sounded and it made sense that it did when somewhere between those sickening ideas, he'd come into the cell. Jesus, didn't Jason lock that thing?

"Roy, you need to stay on  _that_  side of the bars." 

"Have you taken your meds?" The archer ignored the precautions, remaining ever-calm while it remained a conscious effort not to stare at his throat. How pale and vulnerable it was... 

"I haven't skipped a day but you - you  _need_  t - to," he fidgeted with his hands, not trusting himself to put them on Roy, not even if it was to move him to distance where he'd be safe. 

"Jason, you  _need_  to talk to me." Ginger pushed. "What's wrong?"

"I - I just don't feel right." He unintentionally whined, palming at his face with rough hands as if that could make the thoughts go away. They were steadily turning from mere images in his head to a persistent tugging desire to get his hands around Roy's throat. Shivering, Jason tightened his arms around himself, his fingers curling into his sides, staring at the ground or the wall, or anything that wasn't his friend. 

"Like what sort of not right?" Concerned, Roy came a step closer and Jason took one back. 

"The sort where you  _really_  need to not be here." Jason fidgeted again, this time all of him, not just his hands. 

"Jay, you're not making any sense." He arched himself a bit to meet Jason's lowered gaze, his eyes stained to their deepest colour by the worry of what might be happening. 

"Should I call the shrink?" He unhelpfully suggested but he must have thought it would do some good, otherwise, he wouldn't have ever mentioned it. Jason responded with a rough shake of his head.

"He  _can't_  help."

" _Yes_ , he can." Roy insisted while he pushed Jason's head back up, hand beneath his chin, his involuntary trembling transferring into him.

"Look, nothing that's wrong with you is something he hasn't seen before. He worked at Arkham-"

 _Wait - what?_  The second the first A and last M left his lips, Jason froze and Roy froze, going suddenly so rigid that the thing he let become known must have been an accidental slip of the tongue.

"He. Worked.  _Where_?" Slowly straightening, his arms unravelled from around his torso and with a jerk, he held his head up by himself, feeling his eyes shifting from blue to a far darker shade somewhere in the black spectrum. This time, it was Roy who backed a step away. He'd always been of a paler skin tone but he seemed to have lost pallor until the whites of his scleras looked dark. 

"Jay-"

"He - he was at  _Arkham_?" Jason didn't mean to but he twitched a little there, feeling something cold and familiar creeping up his spine with an electric tingle. Roy, for all the good he'd ever been, didn't lie to Jason again but it made no difference if he had.

"J - Jason, he wasn't there when Joker had you-" 

"That - that  _doesn't_  matter!" The pitch of his voice got out of hand there, the sudden burst from cynical to aggressive making Roy flinch. With a bruising force, Jason snatched his arm to stop him from going anywhere when he tried and squeezed hard into his muscle until his hand shook. 

"You've known  _all_  this time, haven't you?" Growling at this point, he yanked Roy closer and Roy was powerless to do anything. He stumbled forth, right into the grip tightening sharp around his neck and Jason was quite aware he cut off his  _friend's_  breath. He choked and swallowed hard, fingers wrapped around Jason's wrist and panicky eyes meeting his. 

The Arkham Knight could scare someone so fast the power behind it could easily become addictive. 

"You  _know_  what people like him did to me and you still - you-" Jason didn't know what he was trying to say at all or even what there was to say. The only clarity he had was that he  _really_  wanted to crush the traitor's trachea into a splintered mess. Harley Quinn was a shrink at Arkham, seemingly harmless at first and she'd been a key reason that today, every part of him was in shambles. God knew what Olson had already done to him - Roy fucking  _knew_  who the guy was from the start and  _tricked_  Jason into trusting him. 

"Colin worked for you and he was Arkham. Those guys last night -  _Arkham_. An - an' you  _told_  me the shrink was fine but-" 

Roy didn't kick him hard but just enough to force Jason to release the hand around his throat. Grunting, Jason staggered back a stride or two from the blow and Roy fell back to his feet with a jolt running through him, gasping and raggedly coughing up tiny speckles of blood. He was dizzy, a second ago a second from passing out, but he was able to not get hit in the face when Jason tried it. 

"Jaybird,  _calm_  down." Hands raised defensively, Roy urged him, stepping around another fist Jason's outburst meant was poorly aimed. He struck the wall, breaking the skin over his knuckles but that never hit the registry. Slade had warned Roy that Jason would trip something fierce if he found out and the archer was kicking himself for thinking it would never come out.

"I didn't hire him to hurt you - he's got  _nothing_  to do with what happened to you."

"That's what you thought about Colin! And - an'-" Shaking so violently he could barely get a literal grip of himself, Jason yanked his sleeve down to his elbow, leaving white lines on his skin when he ran his nails up and down the tick-mark scars.

"An' he did  _this_."

"Jason, you gotta believe I didn't know about Colin." Roy almost begged him to believe that and distressed as Jason was, he wasn't hearing him

"But you knew about the fucking shrink." His eyes - fuck, what was wrong with his  _eyes_? Through the visor of hair that had fallen to shield half Jason's face, Roy couldn't see a fleck of blue amidst the sea of dull terrifying black. He remembered seeing from those Venezuela video snippets that that's what the Knight looked like.

"You're with  _them_ , aren't you, Roy?" Jason adopted an accusatory tone. "You - you're with the  _shrink_  and the  _guards_  a - and you're with  _Joker_...."

" _What_? No!" Jason might as well have slapped Roy with how far aback that took him. No -  _no_ , Jason couldn't  _actually_  think that. It was ridiculous and it didn't make sense.

"No, Jason. I'm not with those guys - I'd  _never_  hurt you."

Hardly hearing a word, Jason tipped his head slowly to the side.

* * *

 

Humming to herself, Rose decided she would take a walk with Lian but they only went to the neighbourhood  park. God knows where Stephanie scampered off to and Jason and  Roy would be fine in each others company for the tick she was away for. Roy could control Jason.

Even as Lian was telling her about something, Rose found herself distracted from the tale. She was thinking about last night with Jason. She felt cold without his breath on her skin, cold like she'd never been before. Not being in his arms, held tight, held together, it took everything in her not to run back to him. Rose's tongue hadn't touched her lips once in the fear of losing his taste on them. She wanted to savour it, in case last night was a dream.

Thinking about Jason was a double edged sword as just the five letters that comprised his name made her want him with a vengeance.

"-  _Rosie_!" Flustered, Lian yelled up at her, snapping her out of her daydreams with quick hum of acknowledgement.

"You're not listening!"

"Sorry, darling." Rose pinched the bridge of her nose indelicately. "What were you saying?"

"There's a pirate!" Lian gestured wildly to the man who certainly  _wasn't a_  pirate, standing hands in his pockets on the path ahead. Mouth becoming a thin line, Rose's hazy pink thoughts instantly faded to clarity and scowling, she stopped a meter from her father, her anger sizzling on his skin.

"What the hell do you want?" Poison dripped from each syllable. Slade was about to answer her when a certain small girl stepped in.

"Who're you?" Lian stared up at Slade, fearless as she stood but a meter away, completely undeterred by his intimidating appearance. The 6'4 of height, muscles that had muscles, the scars, the one eye thing, none of it was a turnoff.

"Lian,  _this_  is my dad." Past the point of irritation, Rose explained with a huff and jerking gesture to him. 

"Oh." Frowning, Lian looked from Rose back to Slade, mulling over the response before saying anything.

"You're really Rose's daddy?" Slade gave a gruff nod of response, trying to get back on track only to be cut off again.

"You both have white hair like Elsa. Are you a pirate?"

".... No." And this is the point not only his late wife had but also Rose's mother, Lili. He was terrible with kids and he was consciously aware of that.

"I guess I always wanted a grandpa."

"Rose," Somehow ignoring that and looking away from Lian, Slade began with a sigh that was lacking his usual air of authority. He sounded lethargic which was highly unusual.

"You really need to listen to me-"  It was bad to do it with Lian spectating but Rose couldn't control herself when she outright slapped Slade across the face, the back of her hand cracking him with a solid stinging whack.

"Dad, I fucking told you to stay away from Jason!" Rose screamed at him and mostly unbothered by the blow, Slade quietly readjusted the patch over his hollow eye. There was a mark but he acted like it wasn't there.

"I recall I told you that exact thing to begin with." He didn't exactly mutter but his voice was extremely low, almost too low to hear.

"But this isn't about th-"

Rose didn't get her fill last time and struck him again, harder with her hand balled up. Slade could have caught her fist, they were both aware he could but she hardly activated his ever-steeled pain receptors so the satisfaction wasn't even there.

"You cannot make up lies about the people I love just 'cause you can't  _stand_  that I might be happy!"

With the heel of his hand, Slade rubbed some blood flow into the darkening blotch over his cheek. He might be the only person in the world who could pull off an expression between a leer and  _please just fucking listen to me._

"Rosanna, if  _anything_  you just said was even  _remotely_  true I wouldn't be putting all this time and energy into keeping you safe from a man who  _will_  break your heart."

* * *

 

"Jason,  _stop_ -!"

No longer listening to words, Jason viciously hurled Roy into the hall outside the cell, his back thudding into the wall he fell down but staying on the ground was no available option, not since Jason wanted the kill. It was a hasty move but Roy managed to kick the barred door shut with a deafening clang of iron colliding. It was right about the exact instant after that Jason threw himself at the door with no concern for hurting himself. With both hands he yanked and ripped at the thing separating them, the hinges banging against stone as the loudest sound there was, like a demon was trying to escape from hell.

Out of instinct and perhaps horror, fear,  _everything_  between,  Roy backed into the wall, breaths panicky and at an imbalance when Jason's hands came through the bars, flailing rapidly to reach him and yank him back by any part he could get hold of. Like a mad animal, Jason hurled himself into the door... and again, and again, until it became a rhythm where his body was being sent near flying by the impact he was causing and the iron was becoming matted by that arm he had bandaged up reopening at the stitches. 

"You  _lied_  to me, Roy! You lied to me and now you're fucking  _dead_!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I mean, Roy was warned... And good luck not thinking about Slade as a grandpa pirate with Elsa hair now. Good. Luck.


	7. The Brink

"Roy...." Staring like a shark through the bars, Jason's voice was insane and fake in equal parts. "I'm not gonna  _hurt_  you... you can let me out." 

Breathing still a little unsteady, Roy watched him wearily with the cold cinderblock wall to his back. Both Jason's of hands were wrapped tight around the iron grating that he'd given up trying to tear down and now was attempting the tactic that involved appealing to the side of Roy that wanted to resolve this and push it aside as a misunderstanding. 

"Jay, I - I think you need to stay in there." Roy shakily told him, despite that a naive, foolish part of him did believe Jason simply because he said so. Whatever just happened, it had the archer's heart still stumbling. A collar of black purply blotches circled his throat, pulse hammering hard beneath it and he was well aware that he should go find Rose, tell her about this, but he couldn't gather himself enough to move just yet. His muscles ached to the bone from getting thrown around the way he did but Jason could have done a world worse. He could have done what he wanted to,  _kill_.

"Aww, c'mon, ginger," Jason cooed, a strange clicking sound coming from somewhere within his throat, tipping his head against a bar and smiling like an animated snake. "You don't believe that mean old Slade, do you? I'm  _perfectly_  safe to be around." 

Tongue experimentally dabbing at the split in the corner of his lip, Roy's hands shifted on the concrete floor with a scuffle, its chill seeping into him. His gaze flitted intermittently to varying locations, not knowing where to land, not knowing what to think. Jason just tried to kill him and if he got out, there wasn't a doubt in Roy that he'd try it again. This side to Jason, this demented, rabid murderous side was supposed to be gone. The drugs were supposed to stop this sort of thing happening. 

"You don't have to be afraid of me...."

Roy's eyes snapped back to Jason and his wolf's grin as if he'd forgotten he was there, and he pressed himself involuntarily a little deeper into the wall. Seeing he wasn't caving, Jason slid onto the floor, onto his knees with a playful groan and his smile never failed him. It was the sort of Truth or Dare smile that'd unnerve the Joker.

"I told you, Roy. I  _told_  you." Jason's demented eyes glittered with variations of joy and what he was trying to hide, the murder-lust.  He was a very poor pretender but he'd try anything he thought might get him free.

"That you'd turn on me an' lock me up....."

"I'm not letting you out, Jason." Roy tried to find his own conviction in the words. No matter what Jason said, he could not unlock that door.

"I promise I'm not angry about the shrink. It's fine. It's totally fine that you knew he worked at the place that killed me. We're cool that you didn't even tell me. And, of course, it does  _not_  matter that you tricked me into giving him intimate details about the causes of my traumas that he can use against me."

"Jason, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, alright?" Roy pulled his knees loosely to his chest.

"But you  _have_  to see why I didn't."

Jason blinked at odd times, fingers intertwined before him, head tipped so far to the side his neck might snap. But he didn't speak. No, no words came out, he simply stared.

_Tick, tock, tick, tock...._

It was up to Roy to break the silence. Not that he wanted to, truth be told. The last thing his heart desired was to hear more about Jason's thirst for his blood but he wanted to understand this.

"Jay, you said you didn't feel right. What did you mean?" There had to be a good reason for Jason to snap like that. There  _had_  to be. Improvement aside he was sick, it couldn't have been his right mind that compelled that outburst.

"I mean, I don't feel right." Jason leaned a little closer until his face was almost touching the bars.

"But you know that, don't you? You know  _everything_  you don't say." It might just be his head playing tricks on him or over analysing but Roy didn't think Jason had blinked once since he got on the floor.

"I don't know if you realise," Roy said, "but you're kinda nuts at the moment. You told me you didn't wanna be so angry you can't control yourself again. You're doing that right now." 

"Is that so?" Fingers wrapped around the bars, tightening until knuckles cracked one by one. Getting called out for it, the anger inside Jason was rearing its ugly head.

"It's so."

"Hmm." In the second he straightened his posture, Jason's hand lunged out, caught Roy around the ankle, and yanked him violently closer before he could kick to break the grip. The yelp of surprise was muffled by the headlock caging quick around his throat, then Jason rose, dragging Roy up with him. Within a second his feet weren't touching the ground, he was kicking, digging his nails into Jason's forearm but the lunatic only squeezed harder. The bars dug deep into his back but the rasp of Jason's breath on his neck felt the worst of all.

"I shoulda fucking killed you on 52..." Jason grimly muttered while his arm tightened against Roy's thrashing.

But then the tenseness of his muscles slackened ever so slightly with the footsteps down the hall, nearing.

"Jay? Roy? Where'd you two go?" It was Rose and by the light tap-tap-tap, Lian was with her. Jason listened as they neared, intently with his head tipped, constricting the V his arm had formed around Roy's throat to keep him silent. Tiny gasps, choking noises, they were all muffled and his struggles were becoming pleasingly less.  The fingers caging Jason got looser and looser until they fell. Roy's arms banged against the grating, landing heavily at his sides.

"Shh.... Shh, hush now." Carefully, Jason brushed strands of Roy's hair from over his ghostly ashen cheek and behind his ear, caressing the side of his face in soft careful motions.

" _Jason_!" Rose's horror-stricken eyes widened to the size of saucers when she rounded the corner and saw what he was doing. Lian was with her but uh-oh, so was Slade.  _Goddammit_.

Both respective Wilsons made to apprehend him at once only Jason had the upper hand of a few spare seconds. Now, Jason himself could not fit through these bars but Roy was of a narrower build, less width around his chest and shoulders, and the right angling and a few solid, violent yanks where the archer's body slammed mercilessly into the bars was all it took before Jason could drag him between, into the cell with him.

Rose was there before Slade, her arm lunging out to attempt grabbing Roy; Jason backed away too fast, dragging the half-senseless other with him, arm strong around his neck.

"Jason, let him go!" She ordered, begged, yelled, one or all of those. She looked scared.... Scared of Jason? Well, she should be.

"Gotta come get me, babe." Jason sneered at her, hiding his grin against Roy's shoulder, about the moment Slade joined her side and didn't take him two tries to break the lock with a well-aimed kick.  _Shit_. Iron banged ear-shatteringly into stone. Jason dropped Roy and he tried putting distance between himself and Slade. His back thudded into something behind him with a knock, the wall maybe, and no amount of kicking or punching could stop his wrists getting grabbed and pinned.

"Get off me!" Jason thrashed, ripped and tore to free himself; Slade pressed him deeper against the brickwork until no part of him could move more than to exhale.

"Kid, you gotta calm down," Slade told him, somehow his voice didn't waver despite his breathing being  slightly elevated from effort.

"I don't gotta do anything!" Over Slade's shoulder, Rose was adding compressions to Roy's chest, trying to get him taking air in again. Lian was crying, panicking, a pitiful sight really as she begged for her daddy to wake up.

With every fibre of his being, Jason didn't want him to. No one fucking lied to him and lived.

"Daddy - daddy!" Lian cried, shaking her father's shoulder with both small hands. It wouldn't work. He was dead Jason was certain. He'd done a good job making sure of it but then a delusion must have taken hold since a final slam from Rose and Roy was coughing, rasping, sitting suddenly upright but.... He was breathing.

" _No_! No -  _no_!" Jason didn't care that it hurt, he hurled himself into Slade, against his far stronger frame and got nothing from it, not even a shift or stumble. Gritting himself, Slade pulled Jason's arms further apart, almost out of place and he stifled the bit of pain or gasp spiking around his right rotator cuff.

"Slade, you gotta let me kill that fucking traitor! He - he  _lied_  to me!" Jason could feel himself getting angrier but not the powerful sort. Desperate anger.

"I know, kid. I  _know_ , alright?" Slade couldn't know what Roy did. He couldn't but he didn't seem to hold Jason as the villain here. Even his restraint was compressive over forcible. This felt  _familiar_...

" _Rose_ ," over his shoulder, Slade glanced at his daughter. "Take Harper, take his kid, go somewhere else. Got it?"

"But Dad-"

"I've got this but you have to go.  _Now_." Rose listened to him that time, drawing Roy to his feet and taking Lian with, they went somewhere outside the cell. Somewhere Jason couldn't see and out his reach.

"No!  _No_  - don't let him go! I gotta kill him!"

"Kid -  _Jason_ , tell me what Harper did. I know there's a good reason you're like this." 

"I - I, uh-" Jason ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, a violent tremor going through his whole body, throat constricting whenever words tried to come out.

"He lied to me. A - about the  _fucking_  shrink." Jason didn't mean to but he shuddered, against Slade but he still didn't go anywhere.

"Mhm." Slade nodded that snowy head of his calmly as if he understood.

"The new one?"

"Y - yeah-" Jason nodded rapidly. "R - Roy didn't tell me he was A - Arkham."

"What do you mean  _he's Arkham_?" His even, steady tone never left the chat and it was beginning to sound a lot more like something Jason remembered and simultaneously, he hated it. 

"He worked there."

"I see..." Slade bit at his lip in thought, mind going somewhere else but not far enough to distract him.

"You know, Jason, the therapist isn't necessarily out to hurt you. Harper thought he was keeping you safe by not telling." It didn't sound like he actually believed that, or at least Jason was sure he couldn't. Anyone from Arkham was bad news.

"Roy sh - should have told me." Jason went on with a whine. Slade's hands were locked tight around his wrists and his pulse was slowing down; he could feel that against Slade's palms.

"He shoulda. I'm not with him on that but that doesn't mean I'm gonna attack him." Slade shifted his grip and Jason - while no longer fighting him - was becoming increasingly aware that he was pinned to a wall.

"Why'd you do it, kid? You tried killing your friend."

"He's  _not_  my friend." Another nod was Jason's only response to that along with a quiet hum and nothing but opportunity to answer that previous question. By the look he was given, Slade wasn't gonna let it go until he gave up a reason. Why did he do it? Wasn't it obvious? Traitors bleed, wasn't that what Deathstroke taught him? Bleed them before they bleed  _you_.

"He was gonna toss me back into Arkham." Jason finally let Slade know, the frantic breaths and shaking evaporating the dark, sinister undertow to take its place. That didn't last long, however.

"Roy and the shrink - those  _guards,_ they wanna p - put me back in Arkham. They know I'm crazy - the sh - shrink knows I'm crazy-"

"Kid, no one's putting you back in Arkham." 

"They're gonna try - Roy is  _Dick's_  friend and they're in it together-"

"Nightwing is dead and  _no one_  is conspiring against you."  Slade's gaze shifted on him when he said that thing Jason barely focused on or heard, he was too busy concentrating on the bloodshot burst veins streaking across the white of Slade's eye like tiny crimson lightning bolts. Jason was fuzzily recalling recently ripping that out his skull.

Why'd he done that again?

"Kid, if Harper were a danger to you Rose or I would have killed him already." It wasn't all that convincing, mostly since Jason couldn't picture Rose hurting Roy. They were friends long before he entered their little duo. They were Titans. If it came down to choosing, Rose wouldn't stay at Jason's side for long.

_Why would she?_

"D'you hear the voices again?" Slade asked, his grasp none the slacker even with Jason somewhat more grounded.

"No." Not for a while. Not since the pills. Pills that fucked up headshrinker gave him. 

"The antipsychotics?" 

Jason nodded him a stiff yes that made Slade sink deep into thought but he wasn't submerged for long. He released a wrist to press two fingers beneath Jason's jaw, pushing down on his pulse then frowning, Slade checked his eyes for something. Okay, this close-examination was getting uncomfortable and a little too handsy; the merc pulled his mouth open by his chin and he didn't specify what he was doing with this invasive gesture. Were Slade the she-Wilson, this would be sexy.

And then all at once, Slade released him and Jason almost stumbled forward - going from held up against the wall to free within a second that was faster than his balance could adjust. A side effect of the fucking antipsychotics was the slower reflexes, just one in a varying amount of reasons he needed to get off them.  

"Slade, where are you-?" Jason tried to ask when Slade swept out the cell but the spike of noise from the door slamming cut his sentence short. From his utility belt, Slade slapped a pair of handcuffs around the door and the frame to make up for the lock he broke.

"Hurt Rose and I'll filé you." Slade said as a blunt customary goodbye instead of explanation when he marched off down the hallway. Where was he going? What was he doing? No. He couldn't go and leave Jason locked up, not able to pull Roy's fucking arms off.

It was considerably less violent than before but Jason hit the bars with both palms, rattling the hinges in their stone.

"Slade, get back here!" He didn't. He didn't listen or pay him an ounce of heed. The temptation to tear his eye out for a second time was spiking all over again. Jason ground his jaw, knuckles popping when he shifted his grip and the leer after Slade must've lasted ten entire minutes before he truly accepted he was alone and it wouldn't change in a hurry. 

With a bark of anger, he struck the door a final time before he paced the cell in circles and properly digest that he didn't regret what he did. The only guilt that came awash was not being faster to strangle Roy. There were far more efficient ways he could have done it - twelve, actually - but he'd wanted to savour it and maybe... no, it hadn't been hesitation or the wish that someone might burst in to stop him that brought about the sloppiness. 

Roy needed to be dead. The shrink needed to be dead, too. He worked for Arkham, he was automatically bad. Fuck knew what he'd done with those fucking notes he insistently took down and the pills.... god, what was in those pills? Medicine wasn't even on the table. Jason had no logical reason to come to that decision aside from how hellbent he was on the evil that was anyone associated with that goddamn asylum.  

Jason searched his pockets for the anti-psychotics; he always carried a couple with him but found they were now gone. Shit. He must've dropped them somewhere but that was no mind, he intended on discarding them anyways. The rummaging through every compartment on him revealed something else, however, a small device that took his attention off the drugs. It was a thumb drive. What the hell? 

Frowning to himself, Jason turned it in his hand, trying to remember if he put this there, when, and why? It didn't look familiar, not like one of his devices.... 

* * *

 

" _Seriously_ , Roy?" Rose leered at him but he wouldn't meet her gaze; his concentrate green eyes were focusing on the floor while he held a bag of ice to the bruise above his brow.

"You let an  _Arkham_  shrink near Jay? Christ, I should snap your neck myself." She didn't really mean that no matter what the stupid archer had done enraged her. You  _never_  go out on a limb when it concerns Arkham. Bruce did that, assumed Joker wouldn't have Jason there but that wasn't true, now was it? It didn't matter if Olson was legit, not when someone associated with the cause of Jason's traumas couldn't help with them. Roy seriously had Jason's problems and their triggers underestimated and understudied.

"What's wrong with him, Rose?" Finally restoring visual contact, Roy mumbled the question, voice under incredible strain from Jason's handy work. 

"He's sick. You know that." She coolly replied, watching Roy while she ran her fingers through his daughter's hair. Sitting in her nanny's lap, Lian had calmed down some and was watching a cartoon on Rose's phone, the headphones ensuring she didn't overhear them.

"It's worse than normal." Roy sounded vacant and looked the part too. "Slade warned me...."

"Dad spoke to you about Jason? I thought it was just me he was tryna convert." Rose gave a quiet sigh and for a few seconds, she watched the bright animated characters carelessly going about their day on the phone's screen. She wished she could focus on that and not the unravelling of her... Whatever Jason was.

"At least Jason was apprehended before he killed someone," Roy said and bless his heart for always trying for the glass half full side of things but they really didn't need that at the moment.

"He tried to kill you, Roy." She bluntly interjected, massaging her temples with her fingers.  _Christ_ , she had a migraine on the horizon. "I thought the drugs were supposed to keep his outbursts under control."

"It must be a wrong dosage or the medicine isn't right for his brain chemistry. It has to be something we can fix-"

"I honestly hoped Oliver's idiocy didn't rub off on his lapdog." Slade came in with the cold aura of his that could make chills run down anyone's spine. Eyeing the floor, Rose didn't want to look at her father and admit he'd been right.

"But apparently it did."

"Dad, where is Jason?" She quietly asked, her hands tightening ever so slightly around Lian. She could sense Slade was staring at her and Roy, picking them apart with judgement for not listening to the various times he tried to warn them.

"He's in the cell... This should go without saying but that's been the case with everything up until this point so I'll spell it out for you both," Despite adding his daughter to that, Slade was glaring toward Roy now as if this was solely aimed at him.

"Do  _not_  let the kid free. Don't go near him. If he gets loose, shoot him. He can't be allowed to get free. Try an' accomplish that until I get back."

He was about to leave when Roy caught him.

"Don't get so high and mighty with us, Slade. You knew about the shrink too." Oh, so he did? Rose hadn't been aware of that but it was certainly very interesting that daddy hadn't done anything either.

"You go tell the kid that," Slade said, dark and the glare over his shoulder was even more so.

 "Go tell him that he shouldn't trust  _any_  of us. You'll be sentencing Gotham to capital punishment."

With that sense of forebode in the air, Slade turned on his heel and he headed away again.

"Dad, where are you going? What are you gonna do?" She attempted to make him spill his intentions but he remained as closed in as ever, not bothering so much as to say a word or give her a glance before he was out of sight.

Rose blew out her cheeks. She was used to dad ignoring her but exposure never made it any less harsh. But maybe he was right in this instance. It's not like he hadn't spent a consecutive week trying to open their eyes to what a minefield Jason was. She knew he was dangerous but... he was supposed to be better.

"At least Slade didn't 'I told you so' us." Roy unhelpfully said and Rose kept quiet say for the snapshot leer she cast him.

* * *

 

It was a hell of a jog from Jason's hideout to the clock tower but Stephanie stopped by McDonald's on the way which meant the mileage really didn't hurt that bad when she was stuffed full of sodium and calories. Straw in her mouth, she was sipping a pear milkshake when she took the old grey stone steps outside Oracle's HQ. The soles of her Nikes scuffled against the surface of the rock and it was about all she was focusing on for the whole way up to the front door. And then all the way to the tower. And up until she stepped into the control room and almost smack-bang into Slade Wilson.

Stephanie spat out her drink. The spray of pale green milkshake would have left an interesting splatter on the sleek matte black and orange of Deathstroke's armour had she not managed to cup a hand over her mouth but the result of that was the sticky molten ice cream dribbling down her chin and neck.  _Fuck_.

Very slowly, Steph swallowed the bit that was left in her mouth, wide gaze wandering to Slade and then to Barbara, who she hadn't initially noticed was present. In her chair, Barbara turned from Slade and the conversation they'd been having before she burst in.  

".... What's going on?" She gathered herself enough to ask, hastily wiping her sticky palm on her jeans, over her thigh. Crap - what a  _great_  first impression on her future father-in-law.

"I'm here for Oracle's assistance," Slade responded instead of Barbara and Stephanie wasn't prepared for just how gruff and grim his voice was both at once.

"And that requires a moment without you present-"

"It's fine, Slade," Babs said; she shifted in her wheelchair and tipped her head all the way back to meet his gaze. Either she was short or he was insanely tall - or then she was crippled. 

"Stephanie can be here for this. I trust her."

With half a stiff shrug, Slade muttered something way too low to hear but then again, Stephanie wasn't too sure she wanted to know what it was.

From his pocket, Slade tossed a half popped sheet of pills onto the control panel beside Barbara.

"I need you to identify those."

Taking the sheet in her hand, Barbara pushed her glasses up onto her brow, squinting to read the tiny black letters on the tinfoil side.

"This is Clorazil. It's an antipsychotic."

That was a nice immediate answer but it made Slade drum his fingers on his bicep; Stephanie  _hadn't_  been staring at his folded arms this entire while. So that's where Rose got her winning genetics....

"The side effects of Clorazil are drowsiness, insomnia and blurring vision;  _not_  psychotic breaks and irrational paranoia." Wow. Well, someone had certainly done his research or was this among things he just knew for sake of knowing? 

"Jason is having breaks again?"

"Yep. Tried to tear Harper's head off."

"Oh..." Barbara knit her brows, a look of worry taking over her. Stephanie wanted to ask her a big ole  _what_? What was wrong with Jason? How did she immediately draw a line to him?  Babs turned to her microscope before Stephanie got anything out.

"I'll run tests on these, Slade," Barbara told him, already hunched over and peering through the eyepiece, rotating the dial on the side of the microscope.

"Thanks," Slade grunted. "Let me know once you get the results." Barbara nodded and he headed off somewhere new. Always on the move, that one. Must be nice to be articulate.

"Where are you going?" Stephanie went after Slade; he walked in fast strides and she had to jog to keep up.

"The bigger question is why are you coming with?" He didn't look at Stephanie and took the stairs down three at a time. She could have run, it's what it would have taken to match his pace but she picked the more elegant option; she slid down the handrail. From the corner of his eye, Slade briefly glanced at her method of transportation.

"I wanna lend a hand." Stephanie lied. In truth, she wanted to take on the challenge of getting into Slade's good books as part of her long term scheme with his daughter. It was all coming together...

"I don't need your help, girl."

"Then do you need my company?" She hopefully inquired, hopping off the rail when they reached the foot of the steps and sprinted after Slade. He shoved the heavy solid wood doubles doors open with the utmost ease and continued down the street, not seeming to care that he was wearing Deathstroke's suit out in the open. Sure it was almost dark out but still.

"I need you to not get in my way." 

"Copy that." Stephanie sidestepped and was careful to keep herself at a meter behind him so as not to get stepped on. If he'd intended what he said as a hint for her to beat it then she was deliberately gonna overlook it. Nobody's dad gave her orders, not even her own.

"If you ain't going nowhere, girl," Slade said after some while and the realisation that Steph was going to tag along whether or not he liked it.

"You better get your suit on."

* * *

 

 "Late night, doc?" The shrink should have jumped ten feet in fright when Deathstroke stepped into view from the shadowy corners of his office. Except he didn't show an ounce of fear; Olson came calmly into the room, shutting the door and himself in with a dangerous contract killer and... Robin. Robin the little girl who was dwarfed by standing beside him. 

"Well, this is an unexpected visit." Olson was conversational, casual almost. He wasn't afraid when he walked by to drop his keys onto his desk and as he faced away, Slade caught the smile in the quiet breath he took. 

"Something  _amusing_  you?" Slade growled the likes of which should have terrified any man but the fucking shrink was hardly phased. He turned to them with all the time in the world, hands gripping the edge of his work surface loosely. 

"Whatever this is-" Olson gestured to them with a wave of his hand. "Whatever you're doing here. It's entertainingly unnecessary."

"I'll be the judge of that." Slade crossed the space between them in just three steps and fitted his hand nice and firm around Olson's throat, feeling the light bob of him swallowing against his palm. 

"What was in those pills you gave Jason?" He tightened his hand a little, just enough to motivate and encourage willingness.

"I assume you mean Jason Todd?" The smartass said in that professional tone of his. Slade didn't even bother to confirm it.

"Clorazil. Nothing but Clorazil."

"Well, we both know that's a lie. Antipsychotics don't cause  _or_  allow psychotic breaks."

"Maybe he's an exception? If the medication isn't working we can always try a new sort-" Slade bent the man back until his spine was flat against the table top with a hand yet ready to constrict his flow of air. He must really be used to dealing with dangerous individuals since Olson just looked up at him like they were in a therapy session.

"You're playing with Greek fire when you fuck with that kid's head." That wasn't so much a warning as it was an observation Slade saw fit to make as he pressed the dull point of a letter opener to Olson's throat. Funny how office supplies left laying around could become deadly weapons.

"I'm under oath to do no harm to my patients so what you're insinuating is frankly madness."

"Maybe you should listen to the dude, Slade." Stephanie unhelpfully suggested, coming a little nearer with a frown of some sort. She was worried and she was confused as to what he was doing.

"He's a shrink, not some evil mastermind."  

"Yeah and Grayson's just the family's harmless pretty boy." 

"By 'pretty' you mean drop dead I-would-fucking-kill-for-his-face gorgeous?" Her hands found her hips and by all physical signs, Robin was being completely serious with him. Sure, 'cause accurately rating Nightwing's sex appeal was the most important thing of this night. Why'd he let this girl come with again? Comedic relief, perhaps.

"Go wait outside," Slade grunted out the side of his mouth and resumed interrogating the shrink beneath him. He turned the letter opener in his fist and without a blink of warning, slammed the point into the man's palm. This time, the bastard reacted with a scream when the dull bronze glided through the bones in his hand and pinned it to the surface of the table. She'd ignored the order to leave and Stephanie - he could sense that gave her a start but honestly, she was out with  _Death_ stroke. The hell did she expect he'd do for answers?

"The drugs, what's in 'em?" Slade asked again and he did it less nicely, applying the ever-so-slight twist to the knife and it made Olson squirm like he should have been doing from the start. But he still didn't wisen up a single synapse. 

"I haven't added anything to the medication. Jason is an unstable schizophrenic, it should be safe to say any problem uprising within him is a symptom of that."  

What a fucking smartass. Slade was about to put something through his other hand - maybe that ballpoint pen rolling across the desk - when his comm buzzed with the incoming call. Huffing beneath his breath, Slade pushed off the man and walked a little distance to answer. He didn't want that freak to overhear whatever this was about on the caller's side. 

Slade pressed down on the device in his ear with a brisk,

"What?" 

The shrink didn't shut up while he somehow made it to the other side of his table with his hand pinned to it. He was speaking about something again but the merc ignored him.

"If the medicine isn't working and Jason is a threat to the public, have you considered more drastic professional aid for the lad?"

_"Oracle here. I ran those tests you asked me and you were right, Slade. Something abnormal popped up in tox reports-"_

"Please just get to the point." 

"An institution can help him, perhaps...." Olson's talking was getting harder to shove into the background.

_"It's Clorazil, yes, but it's been spiked with a massive side of LSD, the side effects of which include paranoia, delusions, anxiety-"_

"-Aggression, violent outbursts, disorientation, rapid mood swings." Slade gave half a sigh. That explained so much yet made it all harder. Partially, he'd actually wanted to be wrong here. 

"... Arkham Asylum is still operational. Jason might find it homely."  

Slade's sword came off his back to leave behind this office with two shrinks when a sharp crack saw a chunk of lead slam into his unprotected face. A bullet. The fucking therapist had a gun in that drawer, didn't he?

* * *

 

Lian was going for some juice. She went alone since the kitchen was in the other room next to where daddy and Rosie were speaking in hushed voices about JayJay. It was something she wasn't supposed to know about but she overheard that JayJay was sick. Lian didn't like it when people weren't feeling well, and as scary as it was when JayJay had her daddy on the floor, she wanted to go see if he was any better. 

She took a little detour from the kitchen to that hallway with the room that had the bars where the door should be. Holding her sippy cup between both hands, Lian approached with timid steps to find that JayJay was inspecting the door very closely; or rather, the handcuffs holding it shut. The cuffs looked like the ones Chase had in Paw Patrol. 

"JayJay?" Lian quietly said and his attention snapped to her at once. He didn't look angry like before; no, he smiled. There was something in his eyes; an eerie sparkle that made her uncomfortable but  _surely_  everything was fine.

"Hey, baby. Whatcha doing down here?" He asked, shifting himself on his knees. One of his hands was still holding the cuffs and although he seemed calm now, his white-knuckle grip on it was so forceful his arm was trembling.

"I was coming to check on you." Her voice came out so little and unintentionally, afraid. Maybe she should go back to daddy....

"Aw, that's so sweet." JayJay reached through the bars and partially, Lian flinched back but not before he plucked a pin from her hair and his hand retreated back behind the bars. She frowned. What was he doing, sticking the pin in the lock like that? JayJay twisted it a couple times, turned, listened to the clicking and then in no time at all pop, it fell open.

Smiling to himself, JayJay rose and stepped out the cell, free as a bird. He bent to kiss Lian on the top of her head and ruffle her hair.

"Mwah. Thanks a lot, sweetheart." He sounded happy. Did she manage to make him feel better? Lian did hope so and she expected JayJay to go find daddy and Rose, maybe they would talk about this problem they were having like adults?

But JayJay went outside and Lian hardly followed him to the door before he was gone, vanished somewhere down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dear odd_izzy asked me to list who knows Dick's evil and such so here goes,
> 
> Slade definitely knows. He's all knowing. Rose I would assumed has been clued in. Babs, obvi, and Tim. Steph doesn't know yet but I don't see that as a myth she's gonna spend long living in. The League knows too and a select couple of others. Roy and Kori. It not a widely known thing but the people closest associated with Jason would be aware.
> 
> Also, a moment of silence for all the things Slade suffers because of Jason.


	8. The Mad Lad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Autocorrect, when I write, please stop changing Slade to salad.

_Bang-!_

The crack of the bullet splitting the air clean down the middle - that _really_ caught Stephanie off guard and then the next thing she knows, it hit Slade in the face with a wet thunk, snapped his head all the way back and he fell, an arch of blood spewing after. Shit. He'd get up soon but still _shit_. 

Stephanie spun around on her heel, already anticipating the next shot to be aimed at her but the shrink didn't pull the trigger despite having the weapon trained on her already. He'd freed his hand from the tabletop somehow, holding the bloody thing to his chest where it was staining his white undershirt. 

"Robin, I don't want to hurt you." He said, arm rigid with the gun at the end of it.

"Go home. This doesn't concern you."

"Sorry, fella. Not gonna happen." Gritting herself, jaw set, Stephanie balled her fists while her eyes darted the scene. How was she gonna do this? A guy with a gun, routine takedown but this office didn't give her a whole lotta space to move with its packed heavy furniture. Never mind, she could work with this.

"Before I break your arm," Stephanie said, "what sorta sick rise do you get from rigging the Arkham Knight to blow?"

Olson paused a second as if he'd never counted on her asking that. 

"Well... he's _fascinating_." He let her know in a tone that meant it should have been obvious. Lordie, this guy wasn't your traditional sorta nutty doctor, was he?

"I've gone over all of Miss Quinn's notes on him during adolescence and that thing has all the makings of a historic mass murderer. The early phases of these individuals are what's captured people's interests for hundreds of years and I have the chance to document it all. It would _truly_ be a waste not to continue Miss Quinn's research." 

"Where'd ya get the files?" Stephanie pursed her lips, eyes narrowing on him. Tim taught her an important lesson about why they kept the perp talking; it distracted them from the situation and in this case, it meant Olson's gun arm had slackened a fraction. Good... good... Little more.

"There was a patient of mine... I had to retrieve old notes on him from the archives at Arkham and chanced upon files, entries, taped footage... all so _interesting_. No person should be able to survive all that pain and punishment.... Haven't you ever wondered how far the human mind can be pushed? How much destruction can one man on the brink reign?"

"Well, I mean," she tipped her head matter-of-factly, "Hitler's body count is between 50 and 80 _million_." 

"Hitler had legions to his name. Armies who would march to turn nations to battlegrounds at a moments notice." While he monologued Stephanie rolled her eyes at how fucking dramatic this guy was. Jesus, Shakespeare wants his style back.

".... The Arkham Knight no longer has his militia or," with a wave of his hand, he gestured to the grounded merc whose face he blew to shit. "Whatever _that_ is to him.  Aren't you curious what Jason can do without all that?" 

"Not even a little," Steph confessed and while that really sunk in with the dear doctor, how disinterested she was in whatever twisted motives he'd concocted, she seized her opportunity. The second she moved toward him he shot at her; he was too slow, Stephanie rolled beneath the bullets then bounced right back up to land a deserving punch beneath his jaw, clamping the damn thing shut on his tongue.

She had the gun thrown across the room and him pinned to the wall with his arm bent behind his back, all in a heartbeat. 

"Bruh, I thought you were dumb for shooting _Deathstroke_ in the fucking face but then you go an' challenge _me_?" At this display of idiocy, Stephanie shook her head with a dry laugh and leaned real close to his wear to whisper,

"Bitches _die_ when I'm challenged." 

"Right after that mad-lad, check yourself into care." The shrink grunted past the throbbing pinch of nerves in his shoulder, the very one she was pushing from its socket. Dude deserved whatever morsel pain came his way - he fucked with _Steph's_ people. She didn't have a lot in the world, no biological family as far as she was concerned and few friends - god be with you if you attempt to destroy what she did have. 

"Speaking of said 'mad-lad', you know it takes more than a couple pills and a temporary drug low to push him over, dontcha?" 

"Believe me, Robin, I've accounted for everything in my little _experiment_."

"Hmph." Stephanie was none too gentle with the cuffs she fastened his wrists with, cold steel cutting to a hiss through his teeth. No kill rule. _Remember_ the no kill rule. Even if this bastard was tryna enforce acts of mass murder for his fucking psycho studies or whatever the hell he was doing. 

"Guess the brand is a dead giveaway and I don't gotta ask how you drew a line from Joker's pet Robin to AK." She shoved away from him and roughly, turned him with a fistful of his coat, pressing him right back into the wall but maintaining her glare fixed on him. Still not scared but Steph didn't take it personally - this guy with a death wish wasn't intimidated by Slade either.

"The brand helped, yes," the shrink said, shifting his hands in their restraints, "but the dear Miss Quinn never kept it on the down low that the feared Arkham Knight was nothing but her _dog_ , beaten to the point of rabidness. She was proud of that, I think." A bit of light came into his voice, that airiness of pleasure. Wait - did he _like_ recounting what Joker did to Robin 2.0? As if it was some sort of interesting series of tests and not the sickest shit the human mind could conjure?

Stephanie screwed her features up in disgust at this man and she dealt him another gut punch that made him double with a breathless gasp.

"Imma go poke Deathstroke 'til he comes around an' _he_ can choose what to do with you." Huffing, she shoved him into his desk, fastened him to it with her spare set of handcuffs, and gave him a final kick. Piece of absolute shit. 

"Jason won't thank you for this, Robin." The shrink called after as she walked away, raising her middle finger over her shoulder since she wasn't gonna waste brain cells by replying to him.

Stephanie sighed underneath her breath when she knelt by Slade, studying the mess of bone and blood the gunshot made of his face. The lump of lead got him right beneath the vacant eye, shattering his cheekbone with the ragged wet tunnel reemerging at the back of his skull. At least it was in and out and didn't stay swimming around in his brain.  Her eyes wandered to the bullet lodged in the wall, surrounded by a red splatter.

"Yo, Sladoh," Stephanie nudged him with the point of her boot. She wasn't 100% sure how his healing factor worked but she'd kinda expected him to spring up from a headshot. Wasn't that what was supposed to happen? He was invulnerable, wasn't he?

Apparently not. Humbling to know that even Deathstroke was human at the end of the day. Albeit  _meta_ -human.

"Oi, wakey, wakey, Wilson." Stephanie shook him by the shoulder and while the wounds were healing as she watched, muscles reforming and tissues growing back together, it took a minute or so before he moved at all. Groaning through his set teeth, Slade stiffly sat up, wincing with his hand clamped firmly over the wrecked side of his face. 

"Sup, broski? You were snoozin' for a bit." Steph waved hello with a couple of fingers, crouch-walking back a few steps to give him his space. When Slade pulled his hand back to examine the sticky red blood clumps, skin and sinews were already regrowing over the raw muscle. Damn. Stephanie really needed to get in on some of that mirakuru shit - it's the bomb. Dealing with hangnails and twisted ankles would be behind her....

"The shrink...." Slade insensibly muttered, lost for a second with his head blown to shit but it all came back at record speed when those destroyed brain connections met again. That familiar scowl took up residence on his features again, he grabbed his fallen sword and pushed himself onto his feet, all in a fluid movement that defied someone who just got shot in the head.

"I took out Olson," Stephanie told him as he yanked the blood-soaked patch from over his vacant eye and tossed the thing somewhere over his shoulder. She tried _really_ hard to overlook the soft pink hair that fell over the left of his face, taking over from the eyepatch. The hue of those matted locks became less amusing if you took into count the bone fragments and brain matter mushed in.

"Adequately done, girl." Seeing what she'd done, Slade muttered that to her as he marched past, sword tightly gripped in his fist and his muscles tense with intent but Stephanie didn't pay attention to that; her handy work was just _acknowledged_ by the OG terminator. God, her life's complete.... good thing this wasn't the time or place to faint 'cause she'd have been in a coma. 

"You're quite fascinating yourself, Mr Wilson." The shrink commented when Slade grabbed him by the front of his shirt. Mother of God, didn't this guy know when to be fucking _terrified_? 

"From what I've read and observed, you suffer from uncontrollable fits of rage and have a severely impaired sense of right and wrong." The man somehow held onto his calm, all-knowing tone of voice while in the hands of the world's most efficient assassin, an assassin who was about half a second away from tearing him in two. 

"Maybe you'd like to talk about that?" Olson suggested like the sly son-of-a-bitch he was. 

"Robin, unless you enjoyed Saw I suggest you go outside," Slade growled and Stephanie obeyed, taking a nice long stroll down the hall, stretching her limbs but she didn't have a whole lotta time to kill. Slade reappeared far sooner than expected, covered in only a few speckles of blood and purposeful as he ever was, sheathing his sword.

"C'mon, girl," he pulled his mask over his face, "we gotta get back to the kid before he kills someone."

Awestruck, Stephanie stared after him - more like gaped. Was... was she just told to come with? With _Deathstroke_? On a _mission_? Like a - like a team up? Fuck _yeah_! 

Until they were outside the building, she cartwheeled in his wake with the mandatory amount of whoops.

* * *

 

Fuck. Fuck - _fuck_! He got out because of course, Jason would. He was _Jason_. The deadliest thing in Gotham and that's counting the fact that her father was currently there. Rose went after like an arrow from a bow, making a beeline in Jason's tracks the moment Lian told them JayJay went outside and to her confusion.... Rose found him at Gotham Cinema, abandoned for the weekend. With no Roy - his presence would aggravate Jason - and no dad, Rose went cautiously in on her own.

_"C'mon, pretty thing - scream for your uncle J!"_

When Rose stepped into the pitch dark and empty theatre room, her initial thought was that Jason was watching a poorly filmed grainy gorno or some old snuff film when the screen displayed a blood-covered object sailing through the air and coming down repeatedly on a still mass with sickening wet smacks.... But then when the familiar, unmistakable mad cackle burst through the speakers, and she saw the dull fading red uniform, she realised with a start that this was an aged tape of Joker beating _Robin_. _Where_ did he get this?!

"Jason, what _the hell_ are you doing?!" Rose demanded, storming up to the top row seats Jason was lounging across. He'd shed half his armour over various spots, had his boots up on the headrest of the opposing seats, and a huge tub of buttery popcorn sat in his lap. His chewing got louder when he heard her coming but she was regarded with the most indifferent side eye of all time.

"Whaddya want?" Jason disinterestedly asked, tossing another handful of popcorn into his mouth but missing with half of them; they landed on his middle, leaving a trail of white crumbs.

"Why the fuck are you watching _this_?" Rose gestured angrily to the screen and she didn't know what made this worse, Jason making himself remember this or seeing with her own eye what the evil clown subjected him to?

"Cause it's fucking _hilarious_." Jason dementedly said, disturbing Rose by grinning when his past self on the recording screamed while Joker broke something in his back with a sickening crunch of bone and shrill excited laughter ran out with the cry of pain.

" _Apparently_ ," Jason went on and his smile didn't go anywhere. "Joker taped _everything_ he did to me and I got hold of said recordings - found 'em on a thumb drive slipped into my pocket. I'm having a fucking _blast_ going over them." He finished with a chuckle at something the Joker did, the sound muffled by his mouthful of popcorn.

"... _Why_?" Rose asked. She was quieter than she'd ever heard herself, and she wasn't certain she wanted to know Jason's disturbed motives. She yearned to call Roy, even if he could do no more than her.

"Baby, _why_ are you doing _this_ to yourself?" She asked again with enough emotion for both of them. She hated that she could hear Jason's torture unfolding through the speakers and broadcasted by the projector yet be unable to do a thing to save him.

For a while, Jason stared at Joker beating the hell out of him with another of his nameless emotions.

"Look at that," Jason indicated with a piece of popcorn and she didn't want to see what he was pointing to, but she wanted to understand. Hesitantly, Rose sidled her gaze just in time to see a crowbar split Jason's side gaping open. With a shuddery gasp and hand rising to cover her mouth, she didn't know how long the horror held her but the rustle of cloth distracted her back to Jason, a sight she eagerly preferred. He'd taken his hoodie off and rolled up the hem of his tee, exposing his scar covered abdomen. Messes and webs and fingers of scars but one stood out against the rest, and that was only because she just witnessed it be made seconds ago. It was a long white disfigurement with cold purple outlines, running the length of his ribs.

"Sometimes it's nice to remember.... Scars don't change," Jason whispered, his derangement slipping through parted fingers. "People change. Places change. Scars don't. They're real and they don't leave. They don't _lie_." Something about him sounded so openly broken. He let his shirt fall but Rose knelt and fingertips brushing against him, guided it back up and pressed a cotton-soft kiss onto the scar.

"Not everybody leaves," Rose promised gently. Blue meeting blue, Jason's eyes on hers, his shifted between not believing her and needing to. But then he ruined it by snapping his attention back to the screen and turning the volume up with the remote as if a mood-altering demon ripped for control.

"This - _this_ is the _best_ part!" A mad laugh pushed up his throat when with eyes wide in excitement, he watched Robin tearily, brokenly _begging_  Joker to get off him, to which his only response was the nightmarish laugh and the bits of his tattered uniform torn off faster until he was stripped bare, revealing his starved body, covered in both scars and fresh gaping wounds littered like dirt across his sickly grey skin. Joker pinned Robin's arms to the ground and forced himself onto the boy like his weak struggles were nothing. Rose's heartbeat stumbled, trembling as hard as Robin was, the need to throw-up increasing rapidly.

" _Look_ at that _pathetic_ _bitch_ ," Jason remarked, glittering gaze fixed on this horrible thing happening to his child self. "He's crying..." It was a taunt mock tone he spoke in as if his own recorded torment was a comedy to him. Rose wanted to reach into the past and shoot that fucking clown in his stupid head and yell at him to stop but how could her voice be heard above the laughter and shrieks? Nothing in the world was louder. No.... she couldn't stop it, but she didn't have to let it go on.

Desperate to end this, Rose snatched Jason's gun from his holster; he tried to grab it back but she fired repeated shots into the projector that was responsible for big-screening this horrid video, a video that died the second the bullets hit.

"You _always_ do this, Jason!" Rose screamed at him, throwing the gun somewhere into the front row.

"Do _what_?" Her actions rendering him as annoyed as she was, Jason would have stood up to spit that at her if Rose's boot slamming into his chest hadn't pinned him against his seat with a small gasp. She pressed harder, not caring at the shift of his ribs when - if he _wanted_ to - he could break free. But she was too pissed to let him go.

" _This_ -! You - you sabotage yourself every time you get any better! You insist on holding onto anger and hatred, never mind what it does to everyone around you and-!" Rose's shriek-rant turned to a muffled noise by Jason's hand, or Jason pulling her into a crushing kiss, to be more exact. It was a poisonously seductive sensation for Rose to feel Jason so close to her, his heat, his breath, and suddenly, she could hardly breathe when it was so electrifying that she didn't want it to end. All Rose wanted was to melt into him and forget all of this but.... it was the worst thing she could do, to give into his corrosive touch.

With a grunt, Rose shoved Jason away from her. She'd never denied him before and by his expression, this puzzled him.

"I'm _done_ being your fucking distraction, Jason." Rose roughly shouldered past him with tears already hot in her eyes when his hand tightened around her arm.

"Rose, I-"

She couldn't take another excuse - Rose spun around and hit him with the back of her hand before he could say anything that would convince her to stay. Sometimes.... she didn't remember her enhanced strength was there but the way she sent Jason flying by the force of her swing reminded her with mortifying crystal clarity. He crashed hard into the row of seats with a crack Rose wouldn't soon forget and a pained sharp gasp.

Rose. Was. _Horrified_. Jason tried pushing himself up; his hand slipped and he bruised his ribs against a headrest with an ugly smack. Sharply, he winced and she saw blood trickling from the torn seams of his brand. She.... _hurt_ him. She really hurt him.

"Jay-" Rose forgot about leaving and hurried to help him back to his feet but took a step back when he trained one of his many guns on her, quickly taken from his holster.

" _Don't_." Jason gritted his teeth, voice heavy with pain, and he straightened, aim never wavering.

"Jason, baby, I'm so sorry-" Rose frantically tried but he wasn't listening. He lifted his hand to lightly brush his fingers over his J-scar and inspect the damage. He wasn't so pleased when they came back red and wet, he was more like... intrigued when in an examination, he turned his hand with morbid fascination.

"Would you look at that..." Jason mumbled to himself, fixated by the sight of his own blood. Rose could disarm him, easily, but she wouldn't risk hurting him again. There was something wrong with him - this _wasn't_  her Jason!

"Darling, _please_ put the gun down." She urged. "I don't want anyone getting hurt worse."

"I'm not gonna _hurt_ you, Rose," Jason assured her but he did _not_ sound convincing in the least. He sounded crazy. He tipped his head, finger pulling back on the trigger a millimetre and she didn't know what he was going to do. Whatever it was, she couldn't let him have the first move.

But she didn't have it either.

Rose had never been genuinely relieved her father was Deathstroke, that is until Slade bounded out of nowhere to kick Jason away from her with a vengeance and devastating force. The gun was pointed away, dad was here, everything would be fine, and then the momentary thing she felt was gone and she realised Jason would never stay down.

" _Dad_ -!" Rose tried to warn her father but couldn't before Jason was on him, ripping the sword off his back and ploughing it into him with a spray of blood but nothing but a grunt of annoyance from Slade. He grabbed Jason, slammed him into the ground, and twisted his weak arm behind his back all the while his own weapon jutted pointedly out of his side, grinding through his organs with every heavy breath.

"Don't _ever_ point a gun at my daughter again." Slade menacingly muttered as Jason panted angrily beneath him, rage vibrating through him with terrifying intensity. That made two of them. Slade yanked the blade free, a flood of red gushing from the wound when he held the razor-sharp edge to Jason's neck, lest he got any deluded ideas of escape.

"Dad, don't hurt him." Rose urged, despite what she'd just seen Jason do. Despite what he might have done if Slade hadn't been here.

"Rose, _leave_ ," Slade ordered through his teeth, all his attention on the kid, who wasn't dumb enough to buck. He'd lose his head if he did, although he was already tempted to decapitate just for him threatening Rose. Drugged or not, this was behaviour he would not tolerate.

" _No_ , dad." She protested and it didn't go by unseen how conflicted she was.

"I'm not going to hurt - _kill_ him," Slade assured his daughter, not sure that was a promise Jason would let him keep. And that thought was proven correct when the fucking kid twisted his free arm sickeningly far to shove his hand through the slit he left in Slade's flank. For almost forty years, Slade had been a soldier and in all those years, no foe had made him utter a sound of pain, not until the fucking Arkham Knight ripped out a handful of intestines.

" _Jason_ -!" Rose shrieked in horror when Jason threw Slade off him, kicked him away and stepped back fast to reach his weapons, discarded onto the seats. Slade was gasping and quickly realised why he couldn't breathe; a sizeable portion of his lung was mushed between Jason's fingers, blood and fluids leaking.

When it came to choosing sides, Rose wasn't as conflicted as Slade had thought she'd be; she didn't hesitate to kick the gun out of Jason's grasp and grab his wrist, smash her knee into the joint of his elbow. The wet pop and cry of pain weren't easy to forget, except for Jason, he wasn't bothered by his dislocated limb when he threw Rose. Skilled as she was, she caught herself and saw red. She cared about Jason but also..... had never seen anyone hurt her father.

" _Rose_!" Slade yapped and Rose already knew what he wanted. She locked her hand around his and was spun in an axis twice to gather enough momentum to - when Slade released her - hit Jason boots first like a cannonball. She slammed him into a crater in the wall, lip drawn back, teeth bared when adrenaline kicked in full throttle when it hit that Jason would not hesitate to hurt her, her father, or her friends. She'd return the favour.

Rose punched him in the face; his head snapped back. She kicked him; right on that scar she'd kissed earlier.

"I wanted to fucking _help_ you!" Rose didn't willingly let tears into her voice, barely audible over her fists crashing into Jason, his major disadvantage was not being meta like she and her father were.

But then Jason caught her clenched hand and his eyes met hers, cold but sparkling madly. He was smiling, teeth rosy pink.

"You already did."

Slade caught Rose when Jason kicked her hard, across the room into her dad's arms. His blood gushed over her and she felt his breath hitch. Jason came out of nowhere, preying on their literal blindside, and Rose didn't know where he got the strength to send them both flying, but the ground came fast and solid. Rose was barely down when Slade dragged her to her feet.

"Rose, I need to get you away from here." He'd never sounded urgent before. Ever. And Rose didn't argue, she followed Slade, his fingers wrapped around her forearm and he yanked her away. She was terrified because of her father's expression; he was worried. There was a gaping hole in his side, his breathing was ragged, he was limping. Rose couldn't remember the last time he left a fight injured. Or when he was first to leave a fight, for that matter.

Rose threw a glance over her shoulder, couldn't see Jason anywhere. Not in the seats. Not in the rafter tiers. Nowhere. He did this. Jason stalked the people he perceived as prey. And that's why it was so important to get away from him. Every quickly taken stride, Rose was sure she could hear Jason on their heals, only to not see him when she looked. 

"Rose," her dad said, voice gritted, "I take down the kid. You stay _out_ of this."

* * *

 

_At what point did he stop chasing Rose and Slade.....?_

_Did he break into this place? He must have..._

He didn't know what lead to this moment. Neither of them did, not how, when, or really even _why_ Jason found himself at Roy's apartment or the reason gingersnap sent his daughter out the room the instant he showed his face. 

Carefully, without sudden movements, Roy's hand moved to that folded up bow Jason _knew_ he had behind his back, attached to the quiver that's strap ran across his chest. 

"Jason. _What_ did you do to Rose-"

"You fucking _liar_!" Jason's fingers wrapped around Roy's throat and he pulled back his arm, but only to put the archer through the drywall with a crash and explosion of dust. Crying out, Roy's hands were around his forearm, shaking, and he tried uttering something that came out as a strangled gasp. With his windpipe being crushed the way it was, sensible words weren't something he could form.

"No Wilsons to save ya now." Growling, Jason squeezed harder around the hum of life hammering rapidly, the cartilaginous rings in Roy's trachea shifting to a whimper of pain. He was yanked out the wall, only for Jason to hurl him onto the ground and stomp on his back before he could even gather his arms beneath himself to rise. Bow broken, his arrows were spilt across the floor and Roy tried to reach the closest one, millimetres from his grasp.

"Oh, bitch, I wouldn't." Jason's fist found itself in Roy's hair and jerked his head back to a choked scream, ripping out countless strands.

"J - _Jay_ -" Roy tried to say words Jason wouldn't let him; he slammed the archer's head into the floor and a sickening wet smack exploded with the splatter of blood.

"Why'd you fucking lie? _Huh_?!" Jason kept pulling his head off the solid wood ground to thrust it harder back.

"Why'd you _lie_ to me?!"

"Get off my daddy!" Lian ran up from nowhere and hit Jason in the shin, accomplishing absolutely nothing but reminding him that she was there.

"You _fucking_ -!" Jason tried to grab her and do God knows what, but Lian was too quick to get out of his reach. She scampered off the way she had come. _Rat_. He kicked off of Roy but dragged him after by a fistful of his mattered hair while he went after his daughter, confident the archer wouldn't be giving him any more trouble, not with his face bashed in. A deep dark split ran across his forehead, Jason swore upon a glance that he could see the bone beneath the flesh. Blood oozed slowly but heavily from the wound, into Roy's narrowed blank eyes. He wasn't completely unconscious, making small nonsensical breathless noises of pain, but Jason didn't care; he hauled Roy with him down the hall. He didn't remember if there was ever any resistance.

" _Lian-_!" Jason barked, the rage he couldn't begin to process swelling inside his veins and controlling his mind. He shook, trembled, and twitched all the way to Lian's pink-themed bedroom, kicking the door open with a force that splintered the hinges in their wood.

"Get out here, _you_ _rat_." He spat, scanning the seemingly empty bedroom the girl was hiding in. When he dropped Roy, he was left holding a clump of red hair, red by pigment and red by blood. Jason went to take a step and check under the bed but Roy's shaking hand weakly closed around his ankle to stop him.

"J - Jay, pl - please don't h - hurt her...." He was _barely_ able to speak past the blood pooling in his mouth and was lolling in and out of consciousness. Jason didn't listen and _slammed_ his heel onto his wrist, the bone snapping under the blow but Roy barely made note of it enough to scream.

"Bitch, you are _pathetic_." Muttering, Jason took his gun from his holster and clicked the hammer.

 _"Jason - no! Fucking no! Don't touch him!"_ The voice Jason hadn't heard in quite a while suddenly shrieked at him and its unseen force shoved him away from the fallen archer. He stumbled into the wall and rapidly looked for the source of the blow, gun raised and when he couldn't see it, fired at still air.

 _"Fucking_ _ **think**_ _, Jason! Think about what you're doing!"_ That presence hit him again, only this time, with his own fist, square in the jaw. His teeth clamped shut on his tongue while he struggled to regain control over himself, weapon falling somewhere with a loud clatter.

**"Hohohoho! We're back, baby!"**

**" ~~This reunion is a long time coming! And so much you've gotten up to - wait. Did you~~** ~~**_kill_ ** ~~ **~~Roy~~?"**

 _Kill_ Roy? No, he didn't kill ginger. Why would - oh God. Wh - what did he do?

The stench of copper hit him hardest, like a freight train hitting and smashing him to bits, almost as hard as the thing that crashed into his flank in an explosion of fiery pain. Gasping sharply, he staggered from the impact, blood already spilling between the armour plates of his suit and slickly sliding in sheets down his skin.

"Next one's your head, JayJay." Holding the gun he dropped in two small but lethal hands, Lian had a real air of threat to her normally bubbly voice as she held the weapon in line to him, metal on metal rolling when the safety clicked off. Who the _fuck_ taught that _five-year-old_ girl to use a _gun_?!

**"Pretty sure t'was you, pumpkin!"**

**"** ~~**_Backfire_ ** ~~ **~~, much~~?"**

**"Tihihihihih-!"**

"Lian, I need to help R-"

 _Bang_! The warning shot made a mess of the wood floor boarding, splintering it half a foot from Jason.

"Leave daddy alone, _JayJay_! Leave or I shoot you in the face!" She might be little and afraid, but she wasn't joking.

**"Let's kill the teeny bitch, Jay-lad! Let's kill her!"**

**" ~~If you don't we'll make you~~!"** Dick sang along.

**"We'll beat her to death like you did her daddy!"**

"N - no, he - he's not dead-" Jason whimpered through the shaking words, trying to believe it despite how still Roy was in the spreading lake of blood.

**"Oh yes, he is! Yeeessss heeee issssss!!!!"**

Somehow handling the throwback, Lian pumped another hunk of lead into Jason, his arm this time, and he didn't react to the flaring pain or spurt of blood, not when he tried to get to Roy. After what he'd done, Lian wouldn't let him. She started taking shots at him, never random ones but focused her aim on his armoured chest. Bullets ricocheted off the metal with explosions of sparks and sound, each blast of impact making him stumble back several steps until the window loomed near.

" _Lian_ , let me-"

"I said go _away_!" God knew where she got it from, or when she had the time to, but Lian yelled at him while she threw the broken head of a trick arrow at him. It exploded in his face, the fiery eruption throwing him into shattering glass. The wind howled and the solid alley ground came fast, faster than he could have steeled himself for. A crack riveted through him and the next thing he was aware of was that he was three storeys beneath the window he was hurled from, everything shrieking in pain, bleeding, breathless and vision blurring.

**"Dun, dun, dun! Ooh, what happens next?!"**

**" ~~Shut up and watch, you fucking psycho.~~ "**

**"Ah, of course. Annddd.... fade to black..."**

* * *

 

Lian crawled from underneath the thing that protected her from the explosive; her bed and made a beeline to her father. He was bloody everywhere, deathly still, but if Rosie had taught her one thing, it was to never panic. Panicking never helped anyone.

Calmly, Lian searched for daddy's phone and found it in his hoodie's pocket. It didn't have a lock on it, not since this wasn't a work phone, it was the one she was allowed to play Candy Crush on. Rosie and daddy had both taught her what to do if there was an emergency like this, she dialled 911, slow to make sure she got it right, then she held it to her ear, gun tucked underneath her arm. It barely rang before a lady picked up.

_"911, what is your emergency?"_

"Hello, my name's Lian, I'm five, and my daddy's hurt. JayJay hit him and now there's blood on him. I need doctors."

_"Lian, is JayJay still there?"_

"No, I threw him out the window but that's not important, I need doctors."

_"Where do you live, Lian?"_

"I don't remember, but Rosie told me once that you can get my house number from the GP.... _S_?"

" _Yes, we can. I'm doing that now but you need to keep talking to me, Lian. Are you hurt?"_

"No, I'm fine. JayJay didn't hurt me 'cause I shot him a bunch times."

_"You shot him? Where did you get a gun?"_

Frowning, Lian didn't really understand why that was important but answered regardless.

"From JayJay. He dropped it when he started yelling at the walls and hitting himself."

_"..... Okay. Well, Lian, I've got your address now and I'm sending police and paramedics there."_

"Thank you, miss. Bye bye-"

"Lian, I need you to stay on the line and keep talking."

"No, thank you. I need to go." Lian wasn't quite sure how to end a call but she took a guess and pressed the red button on the corner of the screen. A long flat ringing ran out when it cut off and next, she went through daddy's phone again until she saw a picture of Rosie next to a series of numbers, pressing on the little phone icon. The call connected quick and she answered in record time.

_"Roy-"_

"No, it's Lian. Hello, Rosie."

_"Lian, hey, baby - where's daddy?"_

Lian's gaze travelled down to her beaten, bruised father. "JayJay hit him. A _lot_. He's all bloody.... can you come over?"

 _"Oh my_ fucking _god-"_ Lian scowled at the bad language Rosie was using - _"I'm on my way now. How badly is daddy hurt?"_

"There's a big, _big_ cut on his face but I called the doctors. They said they'll be here soon."

_"Okay. Good girl. Wh - where's Jason now?"_

"JayJay's gone," Lian observed in silence how Rosie sounded urgent and worried, frantic almost. By the wind sailing past the receiver, she was running.

"Rosie, don't panic. You need to say calm." The little girl instructed, her own tone flat and not under siege by emotion like her nanny's was.

 _"Right. Okay. I'll be there in a sec, baby. Don't go anywhere unless JayJay comes back. If he does,_ hide _."_

Lian nodded, sitting next to daddy with her back to him and gaze fixed on the shattered window JayJay fell through, holding the gun ready in case he came back. There was a song daddy always listened to and while she neither knew its composer nor name, she hummed the tune to him and stroked the painted green pictures on his arm while she waited.

* * *

 

Rose got to Roy's apartment _fast_. An ambulance and two patrol cars already sat out there waiting and she sped up the pace she was running at.

"I'm gonna check the perimeter." From beside her, Slade said and was already gone to make sure Jason wasn't lurking somewhere before he finished the sentence. Rose heard what her dad said but paid him no heed, not when the wind was deafening until she was kneeling by Lian, who stood on the front steps and watched as paramedics carried Roy between them on a stretcher. The sight of him wedged Rose's pounding heart painfully in her throat, an invisible knife of dread twisting to look at the gash across his face, the splintered shards of pink bone sticking out of his wrist, the monstrous bruises around his throat.....

"Is he going to be alright?" Rose asked the paramedic, picking Lian up and covering her eyes with her hand. Not like she hadn't seen it already.

"I can't say, ma'am." The medic grimly told her. "Not yet."

Rose's arms tightened around Lian and her teeth sunk deep into her lip. She wanted to find Jason but she _needed_ to stay with Lian. Like her father had said, he'd take care of it.

* * *

 

A drying blood stain had formed amidst the burned debris and Slade followed the scuff marks a little distance down the alley, but no other sign that the kid was ever here. He didn't appear to be in the perimeter any longer and quite likely, it was because that Lian-girl properly fucked him up. How the fuck did a five-year-old handle the throwback of a firearm? She was definitely Cheshire's daughter to have taken the Arkham Knight down and while Slade was impressed by that, he was equally disappointed in how his training went through to the kid. If Jason learned the way he should have, actually digested the lessons, then this wouldn't have happened.

Of course, if Rose hadn't gotten in the way of him killing her boyfriend this also wouldn't have happened. He had needed to get his daughter out of Jason's clutches before he did anything - what was happening, it wasn't the kid's fault. It was the shrink fucking with him for experimentation but if Slade couldn't get through to Jason, he didn't want to think about what he'd have to do.

"Got what ya asked for, Sladoh." The Robin girl landed on both feet beside him, returning from the mission he sent her on to the nearest hospital's drug storage. She offered him the pill bottles that he snatched out her hand as he passed. 

"Come with or stay here, Robin. Either way, this isn't gettin' any prettier."

* * *

 

**"Drip, drop, lollypop, birdie's dead if the bleedin' don't stop...."**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's been prewritten a month ago.


	9. The Resurrection

Every breath a whimper or rasp, Jason fell down the wall, onto his knees but the reverberation of dull pain didn't sting anywhere. Fuck, how could it? There was literally no less important thing in the world to him with all...  _everything_.

He killed Roy. He fucking  _murdered_  his best friend and the two bullets he took were just deserves. The one that hit his arm had gone clean through the bicep, stemmed but he'd not been so lucky with the other, it was sunken deep into his flank, oozing out pumps of red with every movement or twitch of a muscle. He made no attempt to control the bleeding.

Grunting from the sheer effort it took to move, Jason gripped the barred door to this familiar cell he'd dragged himself to and shaking, he pulled back to his feet.

**"Baby bird, not that I _don't_  enjoy seeing you in pain, but what are we doing here?"**

**" ~~We're not that far from Roy's place, he can crawl here with more ease than anywhere else~~.... ~~or then he's just being dramatic~~."**

Less than two meters and Jason crashed heavily back down onto the earthen ground, blood loss the biggest bitch of the day. If his blurring surroundings weren't swimming so badly he would have made out the torturous details of the cell, ingrained into his memory after hundreds of days of studying them and only them. This was the perfect place to bleed out and he just wanted to get it over with already. He'd be no trouble dead. No trouble to anyone.

**" ~~Your doppler died too, didn't he? Came back and he's defo caused some problems since then.~~ "**

**"Say, bluebird, do you think that boy's a zombie? Does he...** _**eat** _ **brains, do you think?"**

**" ~~Jesus, clown, I don't know. _Maybe_~~?"**

**"I think he does."**

Just as Jason was getting hopeful the next minute would see his breathing stop, there was the familiar purposeful beat of boots on the ground and the sound alone made him groan while he searched blindly for a gun. There must be one strapped to his body somewhere, the cold weight filling his palm proved him correct. Slade could take a headshot or any and all of the things that Jason had recently put him through. One last chance to make that pirate-wannabe hate him.

* * *

 

Hair bouncing, Stephanie trotted beside Slade while he strode down the halls of Arkham asylum, actually not that far from Roy's apartment. The man said Jason would be here. How he knew was a mystery but the blood trail confirmed it and lead them to round a corner to a cellblock. There was a click of metal rolling on metal that Steph would have ignored as a passing idle noise but it had some measurable significance to Slade from the instant he caught it, then caught  _her_  around the middle roughly. The sudden uncalled for way she was yanked off her feet pushed a yelp from her lungs on the second a bullet crashed into the ground where she'd been standing. The reason for Slade's arm circling her made sense then, she'd have a hole through her head if he hadn't been there.

The merc didn't put her down for precaution's sake and chilled by that brush with death, Stephanie's fingers tightened on his forearm, blood ran cold. Her feet dangled a meter above the ground and under her stalled breath, she mumbled a shaky 'thanks' that went without acknowledgement.

" _Fuck you_ , Slade..." Jason drowsily growled, half into the dirt his face was pressed up against. He'd dragged himself into this crummy cell in one or other bout of madness, gushing the contents of his veins out all over the place, the mess alone enough to make Stephanie scrunch up her feature long before the stench hit. Maybe she was still a greenhorn to this hero gig, but nothing repulsed her like the thick warm reek of blood.

"Fuck you too, kid.  _Sincerely_." Slade responded, dropping Stephanie and she carefully tip-toed around the red lake while her far less caring companion marched across it. Although wracked by blood loss, Jason tried to slap him away when he knelt but he must know that Slade could hit a world harder than he could, no matter his condition. The sharp crack made Stephanie wince when undoubtedly the bruise would reach the bone of Jason's wrist, but hey, it did make the gun fly clean out of his hand so there's a plus.

After that, Slade pinned Jason to the ground, not that the half-dead bat but up an effort of note to free himself. He was in and out of being conscious intermittently but he slipped in a curse word every chance he could. If Jason had half of his blood in his body, Stephanie would pay to see the struggle he'd get into.

"Girl, you got clottin' gel on you?" Slade asked, his hand already extended behind him to her. Stephanie had been too busy watching him to respond immediately, so the attention made her jump a little.

"Uh, yeah, hang on-" Steph rummaged quickly through her utility belt, dropping about a third of its contents before she found the small white tube and handed it over. To keep him from bleeding out, Slade had emptied its contents into the tear in Jason's side before she had everything gathered back up. One of them was fast or one of them was slow.

"Where to now, Sladoh?" Stephanie asked, stepping aside when the merc gathered up a mostly senseless Arkham Knight like two-hundred pounds of muscle and the added weight of his armour was nothing. Deathstroke carrying the Knight like a bride on her wedding day...  _oh_ , Steph's life was complete with the image.

"And why'd that crazy son of mine come here?" She jogged after him, continuing to question him like this was trivia night.

"Because his powers are fuelled by  _drama_." Slade rolled his eye, the sarcasm so evident it hurt. He sounded done with everything and all of this, coming eerily close to a vexed parent and not whatever he actually was to Jason. Another notion Stephanie would treasure until the end.

"What's the plan?"

"We get away from this damn asylum, we get to a safe house, patch him up and we let the LSD wear off."

"How long will that take?"

"Can be up to ten to thirteen hours." As he spoke, Slade adjusted Jason in his arms, tightening them as if he was afraid of dropping him. The wince that flitted over Jason's features immediately caught Slade's attention, glancing worriedly down but the second he felt Stephanie watching him, he brushed any and all emotion under the rug. He couldn't fool her, she knew there was a heart somewhere in his chest... but, it'd be a ten-year dig with a team of specialised cardiologist archaeologists excavating before it saw the light of day.

"He's gonna be obliterated when it registers that he beat his Royfriend to mush." Stephanie mused, frowning at the end by the sheer severity of that. Despite being  _her_ , she recognised the impact that would have on Jason. It would hurt worse than anything he could do with his fists to any archer. Never mind he was seeing Rose, Stephanie did not envy being in Jason's skin. Not even a little.

"Stephanie, you don't have to be here." Slade told her once they were at a nearby safe house she presumed belonged to him. She would have lingered on the notion of being trusted with this location had the shock of  _Deathstroke_  knowing her name not hit like a tonne of bricks. Steph hadn't told him what it was. Had he caught it while he was talking to Barbara?

"You're  _kiddin_ ', right?" Steph cocked a brow. "Dude, I don't bail on my bitches." With the announcement, she wasn't sure what the expression she was regarded with was called, consideration maybe. 

"Fine, then." He knelt by a worse-for-wear couch, laying Jason across it with care that defied the fact that he could crush men's skulls in his bare hands.  

"Kitchen's to the left, go get the disinfectant alcohol from the top right draw." Slade instructed over his shoulder, while he made haste to get the straps and buckles holding Jason's armour together open. The girl was off before he finished his sentence, good help was not only hard to find but it came in unlikely packaging. 

A sixteen-year-old Robin girl, for example.

Jason gave a feeble breathless groan when Slade propped him against his arm, easing the sticky metal plates and Kevlar off, drenched and sopping red. He shoved the upper part of the suit aside, or onto the floor, somewhere out of his way. Turned pink, the tank top was easy to tear down the middle, giving him a proper visual of the mess the kid had him dealing with this time. The ragged puncture in his side, an inch beneath his ribs, had stopped gushing all over the place but that was the blatant work of the clotting gel putting up one hell of a fight. It was no magic cure, although. It wouldn't hold forever.  

Another thing currently worrying him more than the LSD rampaging through the kid's veins was that there was no exit wound. The bullet was swimming around in him and that was...  _problematic_.

"Sladoh, I got the liqueur and some cloths." The girl informed him when she returned, laying everything down for his disposal, at hand's reach. 

"Good girl." He murmured, hardly paying her half a crumb of attention while he made a mental map of how to go about this. He was Deathstroke, not some fucking nursemaid so here's hoping the essentials he picked up would serve well enough.  

"First order of business, we need that bullet out."Slade popped the cap of the alcohol open and jerked his head for Stephanie to come closer and extend her hands.

"Erm, whatcha doing?" She arched a brow, watching inquisitively as the liqueur sloshed over her palms and fingers, dripping to the ground.

"I don't think I need to make it apparent your hands are  _considerably_  smaller than mine. We don't have surgical equipment handy and if  _I_  try to get that bullet out...." He trailed off to let her imagine the rest by herself and by the knit of her brows, the image in her head wasn't a pretty one. Stephanie took a deep controlling breath, already queasy by the notion of digging around in someone's abdominal cavity before she did it.

"I'll... I'll get to work then." 

* * *

 

Jason vaguely felt the liquid rush of fire when that bastard Slade poured alcohol over his middle. He knew what it was by the unmistakable stench but it wasn't even the fun drinking kind - it was medicinal. It'd be hell if he could feel even thirty per cent of his body right now but lucky him, that miniature percentage was in tune to the invasion of fingers pushing into the bullet wound. 

 _That_  woke him the fuck up. He didn't know you could actually scream as raggedly as he did when half-dead and jerking upright into arms that sought to pin him.  _Slade_. Jason was shoved back against whatever was beneath him, his writhing and struggling in the throes of agony be damned. The hands on him were strong, stronger than him by a long shot. He already knew he wasn't getting free.

"Kid, quit  _squirming_  or that bullet stays in." Came the order through a clenched jaw, the hold on Jason tightening until the only movement he was capable of was the rapid rising and falling of his chest as he panted for breath. The fire didn't fade out but was reignited when those fucking fingers dove right back in through the partings in his flesh.

How do you describe something hurts worse than words can say? It's called being Jason. It's called Deathstroke looming over him, half on top of him, while Robin did her best to pull lead from his gut. 

"Can't we give him something for the pain?" Stephanie squeaked, jumping back out of instinct that saved her a knee to the face he could have shattered. 

" _No_. With the LSD, any other drug could spiral him." Slade pressed harder on Jason.

"Kick her again an' I'll  _break_  your damn legs." He was warned and the pain was too great for Jason to care whether or not that was an idle threat, he had no intention to lay still while they poked at him, so the fact that he did for a few minutes meant he must've blacked out.

His head swam drowsy laps around consciousness, every nerve ending screaming at him, hurting more than he could wrap his brain around but dammit if he didn't deserve it all. Hurting Roy the way he did... no, worse than hurting. His best friend might be dead because he couldn't fucking keep his rage in check. What - what even  _happened_? Jason just lost it. Lost it as the Arkham Knight did. It terrified him that he didn't even care how much blood there had been. 

**"Birdie, we all knew you were gonna off archer-boy."**

**" ~~Yeah, I mean, how long did you think~~** ~~**_you_ ** ~~ **~~could maintain a functioning relationship~~?"**

 **"And - assuming you** **_didn't_ ** **murder ginger, he's never gonna see past this. Who could blame him?"**

**" ~~He's gonna be so afraid of you. Just like you didn't want him to be. And what will Rose think? She hates you too, Jason. You made her hate you~~."**

And he hurt  _her_. Jason distinctly hurt her and the way he acted... lord, he didn't want anything as badly as he wanted to bleed out. Slade wouldn't allow that, sadistic as he was. What pleasure did he glean from keeping alive the man who tried to kill his daughter? Actually, why was the notoriously ruthless contract killer helping him at all?  _Ever_?  

Then he felt Slade get off his knees, leave somewhere but Jason didn't feel he had the strength to try get away from the unwanted help. Fuck, he could even keep his eyes open. It was all so heavy and dark but sounds made it through to the registry, particularly Slade conversing with someone who most certainly  _wasn't_  Steph.

" _Where_  have you been? Do you have any  _fucking_  clue what's been going on?"

"Slade, we can argue  _later_. Where is he?"

" _No_. No, you tell me what you're here for."

Haha -  _Christ_. Ouch. Despite it being in his head, the bitter-sweet chuckle made his sides ache something fierce. He hardly cared, however, not since he really must be at death's door to hear  _that_  voice. Beautifully cruel irony. 

**"Ooh...."**

* * *

 

Stephanie hadn't known a guy with the build of a tank like her new BFF Sladoh could get up as fast as he did when his security system was tripped, but she supposed it would make sense he had cat reflexes. Didn't he nearly obliterate the whole Justice League once?  _Goals_. 

Her violet eyes tracked his hastened movement, the practised bordering paranoid way he checked through the window who the intruder was. To her left, Jason made some breathless whimper, tossing what little he could. By now, bandages and gauze formed a cast around his middle, white turned deep red over the wound he acquired himself. It didn't need to be said, it was a miracle he hadn't bled out and while that was something, they were a nautical mile from being out of the woods. There was a reason Slade had wanted her to get prescription drugs she knew were used to stabilise people with withdrawal and LSD was one hell of a narcotic to detox from. But then why had Slade also requested  _more_  LSD...?

" _Where_  have you been? Do you have any  _fucking_  clue what's been going on?" Slade sounded so agitated,  _defensive_ , and Stephanie looked up from threading her fingers in Jason's hair. Who was that man Sladoh was talking to? He was of a similar build to her mercenary homie, but that was their singular similarity. The man didn't have the husky blue eye colour or snowy hair, it was all pitch black to matched his corneas. 

"Slade, we can argue  _later_. Where is he?" He tried to push past Slade but wasn't able, not when his arm formed an unbreakable barrier.

" _No_." He bit. "No, you tell me what you're here for." 

It was beginning to click in Stephanie's head, who that was. It shouldn't be possible but he looked a heck of a lot like a billionaire who was supposed to be dead.  _Sayeth what...?_

Observing the transgression get more heated, she silently stroked Jason's forearm, kneeling by him and the little whines of pain really were difficult to sit through. Sure, he might have killed Roy but that wasn't  _his_  doing. Not really. Even if he'd meant every punch, Stephanie wouldn't enjoy this. 

"You don't get  _anywhere_  near that kid without a  _really_  fucking good reason." Slade continued, as protective as if it was one of his own in question. "Jason doesn't need you to demand what the hell is wrong with him. He is physically and mentally  _not_  strong enough to fight you right now."

"As much as it restores my faith in super villains to see that you aren't entirely heartless, I need to see my  _son_." 

Stephanie got up and she came over, tipping her head as she studied who was pretty much confirmed to be the man who died a year ago. Headlines blasted the story for months but looks like it was a grossly exaggerated one.  _Bruce Wayne_  regarded her with a glance, a questioning one but she was brushed out of his interests pretty quick. 

" _Slade_ ," Bruce sighed, shoulders letting up from the tense line. "I'm not here to hurt him or fight with him. I just need to see Jason, alright?" 

"I think the man's tellin' the truth, Sladoh." Stephanie observed, her extensive training in profiling people not revealing a single sign that Bruce was lying and while Slade probably didn't see the telling body language either, he would always be on his guard.

"Listen to your daughter, Wilson." 

His  _daughter_? Fuck yeah! Double fuck yeah when Slade didn't correct him as he brushed by. That  _made_  her Rose, didn't it? She'd always wanted to be her idol and almost danced for joy. Not the place or the time but that was definitely going on her planner.  _Note to self; rock out to dubstep this evening._

"Oh god." Bruce swallowed when he set his sights on Jason, that stoic facade finally letting up to let them know the man was  _scared_. 

Distancing himself from Gotham didn't mean he pretended it didn't exist. Bruce kept very in touch with what was happening, particularly what the Arkham Knight was doing. For a while, he laid low and Bruce had gotten hopeful that Jason had put his war-waging behind him.

And then he slaughtered a gang in Flynn Alley. And he massacred a group of men on the highway. If it could get no worse, Bruce just got word that Jason almost killed one Roy Harper, beat the living daylight out of him.

Something was badly wrong with Jason. Like he had for so long now, his son needed him and Bruce finally lost the uphill battle with restraint and his better judgement. It wasn't that he  _wanted_  to think Jason lost his head again. He just didn't know what else to assume when he rushed back to the city, expecting he would have to fight Jason to stop another of his rampages killing hundreds.

He didn't expect what he came upon; Jason, only half alive and looking like hell. Slade Wilson and who he presumed was his daughter, Rose, doing what they could to help him.

"What happened to him?" Bruce demanded while he knelt beside his estranged son, who he'd last seen a lifetime ago.

"Gunshot and a helluva lot of non-consensual substance abuse." Slade explained, standing close by and it didn't stay secret that he was ready to react if Bruce did anything.

"Substance abuse -  _who_?"

"Not important right now. The kid's lost a lot of blood and withdrawal's gonna set in soon."

" _Withdrawal_? Slade, he  _isn't_  strong enough to withstand that. He will  _die_."

"Mmh. I know." He gave a slight nod of his head. "Which is why we can't take him off it. Not until he's more stable." At a motion from him, the blonde youngster attached to his side like a parasitic leech handed him a  small medicinal bottle filled with murky white liquid. The label on the side read lysergic acid diethylamide. 

While Slade filled a syringe with the drug, understanding what needed to be done, Bruce slid a hand behind Jason's back and elevated him slightly, his head lolling against his shoulder with a low groan.

"Shh, it's alright, Jay." Bruce soothed Jason, stroking his hair, matted with cold sweat. He felt it when Slade sent him a glance, there were many mixed emotions behind it but he couldn't begin to tell what the merc was thinking. He hid his thoughts well, pushing the needlepoint into the soft inside of Jason's elbow. He flinched unconsciously.

"Wayne," Slade said as he pressed down on the plunger that filled Jason's veins with the dangerous, highly addictive drug.

"The kid's not the blame for those killings, which I presume is what  _finally_  reminded you that your  _son_  is emotionally and psychologically traumatised because you failed to protect him." Oh,  _the salt_. It oozed without holding back, it was in the pale blue eye fixed on Bruce and all across Slade's features as if  _he_  was one to talk.

"I didn't  _forget_ , Slade." Bruce murmured, more focused on how cold Jason was than explaining himself to  _Deathstroke_.

"Batman's identity was discovered, it isn't safe for Jason, Tim, any of them to be around me. They could be used to get to me."

"You're a good liar but your kids can protect themselves, you know that. There's always been that chance that someone would go through them to you, so I'm a little suspicious you come back when it looks like Jason needs a beating."

"After what Jackal did to Joseph, I'm surprised you would say that." That was a low blow and he knew it, it made Slade go tense. Rigid to his marrow. Making Slade Wilson stall was an accomplishment unto itself. 

"Hey, man," Rose scowled at him, "This family had a dick and he's dead. You're gonna lose a fucking head if-"

"Stephanie,  _stop_. We don't have time to quarrel." At a word from Slade and who Bruce had thought was his daughter, but apparently  _wasn't_ , dropped it.

"Jason needs our attention right now, but once he's stable," Slade's gaze met Bruce's, stone cold. "You and me, Wayne. Outside."

 _Deal_.

Unsurprisingly, the LSD saw Jason's writhing and tossing grow milder quick. He didn't even scream when after an hour or so, Slade picked him up as easily as if he were a child. Bruce watched him with knit brows when his son burrowed his face into Slade's shoulder, telling himself to overlook the obvious trust Jason had in the other.  _Trust_. No part of Bruce had expected Jason to harbour any subconscious feelings of that confidence in himself, but seriously,  _Deathstroke_?

Slade carried Jason to the bedroom, laid him on the bed and proceeded to cuff both his wrists above him, to the headboard.

"He's gonna be in one hell of a mood when he wakes up." The merc explained, then added the remark over his shoulder, "No idea how he's gonna react to you, but don't expect it to be pretty."

Bruce was prepared for that. Expecting Jason not to flip was unrealistic. One of his initial takes on the situation had been that Jason fell off the rails again and needed to be stopped, but if that wasn't the case, it really might not be the smartest thing to linger. Not within sight lock, at least. Just as well, he headed outside and Slade followed with a parting few instructions to his blonde sidekick. The girl bobbed her head up and down like doing what Slade wanted was on par with God's word. 

"Why,  _Wayne_?" Slade shut the door behind him and they stood facing one another on the front steps, the smell of rain tracing the air.

"You rose from the dead -  _now_ , of all times.  _Why_?" 

There were zero reasons to ever explain a thing he did to Slade. One, it didn't concern him and two, you never give anything away to someone who sports the titles super and villain after their name. But.... he'd saved Jason's life with seemingly no malicious intent. Thus far. 

"Do you want the honest answer..." Bruce's eyes narrowed on his blatant distrust. "... or do you want the answer I'd give Deathstroke if I had to?"

"Try both and let's see which one I like better." 

Alright then.

"The Arkham Knight was killing tens of people again. He had to be stopped.  _Again_." It wasn't difficult to miss the shift in Slade's posture, going from regular defensive to straight-up defensive. Why did this man feel the need to protect Jason? It was sad, honestly, to see him trying to compensate because his own kids were either dead or hated him.

"Alternatively, I've been supervising activity in Gotham, namely its underbelly." Bruce continued. "A week ago, chatter started going around, about the Arkham Knight. About Jason. A cult-like gathering of ex-Arkham employees got it into their heads to get back at Jason for killing one of them, and by 'getting back' I mean they were planning Joker-scale things. Someone wanted to  _skin_  him. Another was fantasising over cutting his arms off with a rusted bone saw." Grim, he stared to see Slade's reaction and while the merc hid everything he might be thinking, his silence was good. He was  _listening_.

"I got worried. I started looking more into the people around Jason and found confidential records of Seth Olson being his psychiatrist.... I've had some run-ins with him at Arkham in the past. I knew who he was, I didn't trust him, and he had access to my son."

Chewing on his lip in thought, Slade watched the ground through his lashes a moment before he said anything,

"You were worried that Arkham was gonna get the kid again?" 

"Something like that." He murmured, nodding. "And I thought Jason could get better without me being near but he's only getting worse."

"I'll never,  _ever_  side with you but I understand that reasoning.... still, Jason  _won't_. Not after all this time when it's gonna look like you only returned to take him down. I'd think really hard about what you wanna say to him...." There was the scuff of Slade's boots on the ground when he reached to open the door again, looking him dead in the eyes. 

"... Or if it's wise to let him know you were ever here. He may think he's gotten over his grudges against you, but he can't 'cause they ain't just grudges. They're  _scars_." 

* * *

 

Argh,  _Jesus Christ_. Why had someone parked a goddamn anvil on his head? Well, maybe not literally but that's sure as hell what Roy felt like with the knifing agony splitting his skull down the middle. He wasn't sure if the weak groan teetering on the edge of his teeth fell over and made it into the real world but something or one to his left... or right  _(up?)_ , shifted as if alerted by him. 

They came closer to him, finger-pads that brushed so lightly over his arm like knives on his overly sensitive skin. It burned, he hissed with his teeth clamped shut but... he noticed in instant panic that it wasn't by his own means. He couldn't.... part his mouth at all. Something ungodly tight kept him unable to even scream to express the pain he was currently in. It was a numb detached sort of pain that made him think he was pumped pretty full of morphine. Morphine... this must be a hospital. 

"Hey... you're awake." The person beside him was Rose, that much was evident by the voice but the fact that she had trace amounts of Jason's odd smokey/gun powder scent to her was worrying to Roy. Worrying because there was no lack in transparency as to what lead to him being in this state. He recalled with perfect crystal clarity what happened. Even before his eyes fluttered open to glaring artificial light he was repeating the mantra in his head that Jason had a break and he wouldn't have done it in his right mind. Pathetic, he knows.

"R.. R-ss-" He tried to speak but it proved too difficult with the scratchy dryness of his throat and whatever was keeping his jaws shut. Even the attempt flared veins of fire through the bone of his skull. Whimpering, he sank back into the unbearably soft surface beneath him, breath shuddering and he was afraid he might black out again.

"Try not talking, Roy," Rose told him, her voice ever-so-gentle but it was raw. Raw from perhaps  _crying_?  

"Jason broke your jaw, the doctors wired it shut the crack doesn't get any worse." Oh... that made sense. With how many times his face was bashed into the hardwood kitchen floor back at his apartment, it would be nothing short of a miracle if his skeleton was intact. 

There was something very pressing on his scrappy, disoriented mind but since he couldn't say it, Roy signed it to Rose with hand gestures.  _L-I-A-N?_  She had a brother who was mute, she understood at once and nodded sharply.

"She's alright, asleep, not hurt at all. She shot that  _fucking_..." Rose trailed off, her normally pale eye gone dark with pure rage. She didn't need to word it to express she was just brimming with anger towards Jason for doing this. 

 "Dad went after Jason," Rose added and she bit her lip, already blotchy purple from her relentless canines. Roy wished he could try to explain to Rose...  he didn't know what but there had to be a severe reason behind this. But the key reason Rose and Jason got along is that they were cut from the same cloth. Cross them; pray there's a god who's listening to prayers. 

Jason came for her family, he crossed her.

Roy thinks he might have blacked out again, too much pain, too much medicine, and the next thing he knows is that he's blinking back light again, light and the blur of blond that was ten shades too dark to be Rose's outlines. A new person had come in, that girl from Jason's HQ with the inappropriate quips every two seconds. Stephanie,  _Robin_.

She speaking to Rose in a low voice, oblivious to him being awake.

"Your dad sent me," she said, "since he says you're gonna dismember Jason once you get your hands on him an' he wanted me to give you this snippet of inside info about the shrink's involvement..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am ashamed of how slow I'm being updating this. I'm sorry.
> 
> BUT, what do we think? Did we think he'd show up again?
> 
> I don't know, there's this feeling of unhappiness regarding this chapter in me but no amount of editing is making it go, so this is what you dudes get.


	10. The Aha-Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *deep breath* I need to finish this thing...

"How is he?" Leaning on the brickwall, Jason pushed away from it when Bruce joined him in the alleyway, outside the building he went into a few hours ago. Jason's arms were crossed, stance casual but he was feeling anything but. His chest and throat were tight, he was anxious. Not for any reason  _you_  would understand.

"Shot. Poisoned.  _Bad_." Bruce sighed, the telltale signs of weariness allowing that bit of weakness to his voice. Jason shifted his stance, leaning from one leg to the other, eyeing his adoptive father. 

"He gonna be alright?" Judging by the way Bruce had wanted to jump dimensions so drastically, Jason would think  _not_. He hadn't known daddy bats kept an eye on his doppelganger (fuck knows how he did it from a sister universe) but apparently, a situation came up where Bruce spontaneously wanted to check in on AK. And why was  _Jason_  with? Don't read him wrong, he  _didn't_  care if the Knight was dead as roast beef but... he just came with,  _okay_? 

"I'm not sure. Slade Wilson is apprehensive-"

"Wait -  _Slade_?" Jason's brows rose to have tea with his hairline, the blatant shock something he couldn't disguise. 

"Mmh." Bruce nodded. "He's the only reason your identical isn't dead....  _somehow_ , he's managed to get Stephanie to follow him around like a lamb." He left it off there but Jason decided he'd do the man a charity by finishing the saying.

"Like a lamb to the slaughter....?" The bit of humor he tried to insert didn't go down well and he might have regretted it at once, Bruce certainly didn't appreciate it, so said the harder set of his features. 

"Stop joking around. This is serious." Oh, man. Jason hadn't gotten that tone since he was fourteen and in an influx of genius, decided he should write 'don't steal' on the Batmobile's hubcaps. 

"From what I managed to get from Slade - which  _isn't_  a lot," Bruce continued while Jason took the silent hint to shut up and listen.

"An ex-Arkham psychologist drugged your double, spiked antipsychotics with LSD-"

" _Why_?"

"I don't know. Slade isn't very forthcoming and Stephanie's gone somewhere, so I can't question her." 

Jason chewed at his lip in thought, quickly revisiting everything bat dad revealed he'd learned that prompted this visit. AK's gone nuts, ex-Arkham staff were fantasizing getting their hands on him....

"And the ex-Arkham staff? I know AK killed a bunch but that wasn't  _all_  of them, right?"

"No. Ten accounted for, ten on the lamb, at least that's what I gathered from records of a dark web-based chat room, detailing their intentions."  _Dark_   _web_?  Those chat records were supposed to be completely untraceable and anonymous, so Jason had to wonder how Bruce figured out who was who.

"They're gonna come for AK again, ain't they?" They'd be stupid to assume anything but. The guys went this far, they'd have the stones to attempt a mortal blow especially now that the object of their malice was wounded. 

"I'd take care of them but I don't want to leave your doppel-"

"I get it, B," Jason held up his hands with a nod. "You wanna be here to explain yourself to crazy before that merc corrupts him into thinking you're his 'verse you since.... I garner you  _didn't_  tell  Slade we ain't from around here."

"No. I don't know what he'll do with that information." Probably absolutely nothing at all but Jason let Bruce have his paranoias when they might be his dearest friends.

" _So_ ," Jason went on, "I'll take care of the Arkham staff if you take care of AK."

"No, Jay, they could hurt you-" 

"I'll be  _fine_." He insisted despite the other not being as confident in him. "And I'll make sure they mistake me for AK, it's gonna be a warning they won't ignore if Arkham Knight beats the living hell out of them even while he's 'injured'." 

Bruce considered it, considered  _him_  and his proposition with actual logic behind it. The Knight would seem weak if he crawled into hiding, it would paint a target bigger than the last and to be honest, it would certainly be satisfying to fuck with people's heads in this dimension by pretending he was his doppelganger.  _Maybe_  Jason still had his grudges.... 

It was agreed and Jason was off quick, leaving his leather jacket for Bruce to take care of while he modified his suit to match the Knight's the best he could. He didn't think he could get his hands on the official armor with such short notice, so this would do. He was turning his kevlar vest inside out to hide the red bat against his chest when a surprise fist by a surprise person caught him in the jaw. Jason's teeth shut on the tip of his tongue to a muffled yelp but that aside, he managed to catch the next balled hand that wanted to meet his face.

His sights locked on an angry blond chic wearing an eyepatch. 

"How the fuck are you walking around,  _Jason_?! Lian  _shot_  you-" Nearly at once, she realized the mistake concerning his identity, the moment she saw there was no member of the alphabet residing on his face, she stopped yelling at him. 

" _Who_  are you?"

Jason worked his jaw, rubbing at the red mark and swallowing the blood underneath his tongue. Ouch. Dammit.... It wasn't like he didn't recognize Rose just by her face alone but that right hook was definitely more familiar.

"It's a long story..." He started. "But summarised, I'm AK's doppelganger from an alternate dimension. I'm  _visiting_." If there's one thing he'd learned from Slade that she'd inherited, it's that if  _she_  asks a question, you trip over yourself in the hurry to answer. Not like she could use this information for anything. 

"You're... _Red Hood_?" Her brow arched as she inquired, the fact that  she knew his alias not all that surprising since if she was chummy with AK, then he might have told her about his cross-dimension skipping adventures, in the form of bitching,  _of_   _course_.

"That's me." He spat out a glob of blood. "It's a pleasure,  _Ravager_."

"Rose."

"Alright,  _Rose_." Jason stepped around her. "You run along to find your daddy or whatever you're doing here, I got some business to go about." Her hand latched onto his wrist in a vice-grip that there was no way he'd be breaking, not since she was a  _meta-human._

"What are you doing here,  _Hood_?" Rose spoke through her teeth - something had  _really_  set her off. Jason did wonder how deeply she was involved with AK, given how he himself had once had a fling with the Wilson girl. A couple hours of fun but they left it professional after that. Hopefully, the Knight had been smart enough to not get too involved with the Deathstroke family cult.

"I'm here with my dad, we're here 'cause my less hot twin looked like he needed an intervention. We didn't know your dad was already on it." The enlightening explanation did the opposite of assuring her; Rose's fingers tightened around him until they bruised.  _Oww_.... Her hand trembled, she glared at him but like a typical Jason, he steeled himself to not react to the dull throbbing pain. 

"And where are you going  _now_?" Rose asked with the sweetest, most  _delicate_  mutter he had ever heard. He was beginning to get the sense that she was angry at everything and not subjectively him. 

"I'm off to kick in some heads belonging to the people who did this." 

Rose flipped her hair over her shoulder in one  _flawless_  wave, letting up the side-eye to regard him with a full on front profile.

"I'm coming with you."

"Rose, I don't think-" Jason muffled a yelp with his hand when Rose twisted his wrist almost clean out of its socket, turning slowly and methodically against his attempts to pull free. 

"Fine -  _fine_ , you can come!" He caved shamefully fast, almost as fast as Rose released him to lick his wounds, clutching his wrist in a trembling grip. She turned on her heel and strode down the way he'd been coming, gesturing for him to follow. 

Jason wasn't sure how he ever forgot that Rose was hell on heels.

This incident refreshed his memory as to exactly why he preferred to date dopey, scatterbrained archers and not  _women_. 

* * *

 

It was deliciously easy to trick Slade into thinking Bruce was this dimension's version of himself. Come up with a half-believable story based on what he already knew about his doppelganger, pretend he didn't recognize Stephanie, then boom,  _results_. The merc probably would have been more in tune to deception if he wasn't so clearly deadly tired. Now, he hid his weariness well but the fact that he'd pretty much fallen asleep on his feet was telling. A ten-minute power-nap is all he said he needed to keep functioning but that was an hour ago. Bruce wondered how many days Slade had been awake and dealing with Jason for since if he calculated correctly then this started over a week ago.

It's not that he was  _ungrateful_  for Deathstroke's involvement, it's just that he distrusted the man with every fiber of his being. Was that so wrong? He was a goddamn  _supervillain_  on 52 and Bruce was quite sure that was the case here also, no matter he appeared less demented. This dimension had a psychopathic Dick Grayson, a not-completely-insane Slade Wilson and a version of Jason who  _didn't_  flaunt? No wonder the Knight had a bad case of culture shock.   

Jason had been out of it for four hours now. Four hours and thirty-six minutes. Bruce had been counting every second that ticked by, a time he didn't spend ruminating nearly as much as he wanted to. All the instances where he wanted to go over everything in his head as habit demanded, his eyes wandered to Jason. Or, more specifically, the purpling scars that seemed to shine against the sickly white contrast of his skin.  

Hood had his fair share of scars but  _nothing_  to that extent. 

Bruce had seen the Knight's arms back when, not his chest and abdomen but it was as he'd expected, the long-sleeved shirts and hoodies Jason wrapped himself in hid a maze of marks that resembled a road map more than skin. 

" _Mhh_..." Bruce's ears pricked when he heard that weak, disoriented noise come from between Jason's cracked lips. He groaned, turned his head slightly to his side and his lashes batted, heavily blinking dull blue eyes staring at nothing.

" _Jay_ ," Bruce came a little bit closer to him but kept a sensible distance when the initial reaction could well be comparable to a volcanic eruption. Jason's unfocused gaze sidled with difficultly, drowsy for the second it took for him to strike recognition. The sudden tenseness of his muscles and jerk of his arm against the cuffs was indicator enough that he  _wasn't_  happy.

"Wh.... at the hell are y -  _you_  doing h... here?"  The mutter, though utterly void of any strength, was aggression in its purest incarnation. He tried to kick Bruce but failed on account of him standing just out of reach.

"Jason, it's me-"

"I fucking  _know_  who you are." He yanked at his restraints, using the semblances of power he was regaining with the motivation of desiring harm. He's be justified for that if Bruce were from this dimension.

"I'm from 52," Bruce told him, "Remember me?... I remember that you call Roy gingersnap, you hit your doppelganger with a dismembered arm and melted Dick's alphabet magnets in the mansion's kitchen."

Jason's distrustful eyes narrowed while he ticked things off in his head, things there's no chance this dimension's Bruce Wayne would know and it was proof enough to be convincing. Jason went lax again, settling back down with a breathy groan, the chainlinks rattling with the movement.

" _Why_  are you here?" He shut his lids again, wincing when a too deep breath tugged at the wound. 

"I came here because I had to make sure you were alright." Now that it was safe, Bruce fully came to his side and his response made Jason frown though not comment.

"Where's Slade?"

"In the living room, asleep. Do you want me to wake him?"

" _No_." Jason gave a feeble shake of his head, quite confident that if he bothered the merc one more time he'd stop being so unreasonably charitable.  _Surely_  Slade had his limits. 

**" ~~You might actually be surprised, little wing. He was awfully tolerable when I gave Rose a couple lessons~~."**

**"Y'know - I _always_ wondered about you and that girl. _Anything_  - wink, wink - _there_?"**

**" ~~Hehe, I don't kiss and tell~~."**

**"Ooohhh... haha, now that's something to theorise about!"**

"Is Hood with you?" He asked when he mustered the ability to care. It was better than focusing on what he'd done to his friends and the cold, cruel disappointment he didn't wish to feel concerning Bruce. He shouldn't have held onto any hope at all that  _this_  dimension's version would bother to check in. His lack of disinterest was confirmed.

 **"What - you think he** **_actually_ ** **cared about you? Ha!"**

**" ~~Literally, he's had a year to come back if your well-being meant a thing to him. It doesn't, or he wouldn't have ignored me beating your scrawny ass~~."**

**"Funny how daddy didn't ask why birdie had so many extra bruises when he went out with big brother, isn't it?"**

**" ~~Oh, he~~** ~~_**knew** _ ~~ **~~. He knew~~."**

"He's  _with_  me but he's not here right now." Bruce told him and Jason's pain levels were increasing drastically with the idea that he might have to waste brain cells talking to that  _thing_. He hummed as a response, giving the cuffs an experimental tug. Why was he chained...? Whatever the reason, the more he became aware of the cool metal encircling his wrists, the less at ease he could feel.

"C - can you let me go?"

"I'm sorry, I can't." 

**"Aww, doesn't daddy know that baby has a phobia of being tied up while he's hurt?"**

**" ~~Apparently not~~."**

**"Shame about that - say, Jaylad, do you think they've got you all wrapped up 'cause we're all just waiting for every member of Arkham to pop in to have their turn whaling you?"**

**" ~~Ooh - wouldn't~~** ~~**_that_ ** ~~ **~~be interesting~~?"**

The idea - unrealistic as it was - made Jason shift anxiously and pull a little harder, the tendons of his wrists straining under his skin. It burned but he didn't care. 

"Jason, stop that." Bruce told him. "You're going to hurt yourself." He sounded genuinely concerned and if he hadn't already known, then Jason would be immediately suspicious that this wasn't his Bruce. God knows that's a tone he'd never choose.

His heart pumped a little faster, harder against his ribs and if he wasn't feeling terrible enough already, the ravage of blood loss was making him nauseous. Or maybe it was the drugs. 

Jason was semi-aware he must look like a bleached ghost but Bruce was hyper in tune to that, he left briefly and came back with a glass of water that he held to Jason's lips.

"This will make you feel better." He assured and Jason took an apprehensive sip, eyeing the man and never averting his attention. The swallows were painful and for a moment, he actually entertained the fear that the water might spill out the ragged puncture in his side but that was too ridiculous to believe for more than a millisecond.

"Do you know if Roy.... is - is he  _dead_?" Jason tenderly inquired when he got all the water he could manage and Bruce retracted the glass. Half of him didn't want to know if he'd managed what he set about accomplishing but he needed to know how much self-loathing he should distribute.

"I'm not sure, Jason." Bruce admitted with a sigh and it was like he  _wanted_  to torture Jason. 

"Can you find out? I should know whether or not I've murdered my best friend." 

"I'll contact Stephanie, she went to the hospital."

Bobbing his head, Jason swallowed past the sand-paper he was convinced was lodged in his windpipe. 

"And... And  _Rose_?" She would be  _livid_  with him. 

**"Got that right!"**

"Rose  _Wilson_? I haven't seen her, Jason. Slade might-"

"When he wakes up, can you ask him?"

Bruce watched him and he must have seen how desperate he was for those answers. He nodded.

"I'll go find out myself. Will you be alright on your own?"

Clicking his tongue, Jason leaned his head back and he stared at the ceiling, wishing it would provide some comfort in the face of the latest disaster he was guilty of. 

**"Alright on your own? That's the safest thing for you to be, baby birdie. Safest of for everyone, that is."**

**" ~~Ya-huh. The moment you got any semblance of a family, you beat the hell out of them. Doesn't that tell you anythin~~ g?"**

"I've managed a  _lot_  worse on my own, old man."

* * *

 

 _What_  did AK see in Rose, again? Jason had gathered they were more or less a thing but  _why_? She was fucking terrifying in all caps the way she tore into the remainder of the Arkham staff and Jason  _distinctly_  had a thing for people who lacked a streak of dominance. Like Roy, for example. Plus.... She was a  _girl_. Eww. It might be his seasonal gayness coming out but  _eww_.

The staff fell for the Jason-switcheroo like a charm, never once thinking he wasn't the Knight despite he wasn't sporting a disfiguring facial scar. Probably, they were too busy trying to run away to notice. Jason didn't have to lift a finger to keep them getting away, not since Rose seemed to have inherited every bit of Slade's badassery.

Those men  _cried_.

Fully reaping the advantage of the no-kill rule not being a thing here, Jason put bullets into a couple of skulls but Rose did most of the killing, she went fucking  _insane_. Note to self; do  _not_  mess with her bae.

Once he got home, Jason would let Roy know that he loved what a sheeple he was. He had a new appreciation for his ginger.

In the wake of that massacre, Rose charged off in a new direction and Jason trailed after her as if he was a sheeple, too.  Actually, he was worried about what this she-Slade would accomplish unsupervised, not that he could do jackshit to stop anything she wanted to. 

And this is why we don't date women, he thought to himself when she split the door of an office clean down the middle with her boot. Rose stormed in, actually exceeding Slade at his scariest all the way up to the mess of blood and what resembled human body parts by the desk. She grit her teeth,  _furious_. 

"Dad fucking  _killed_  him!" Rose exclaimed while Jason studied the corpse of a man.... torn clean down the middle in some primordial show of superhuman strength.  _Dad_  did this?  Well, Slade was a muscular fellow but the weight of what he could accomplish was surprising. 

Let this be a lesson Jason took to heart, don't  _ever_  let Deathstroke get his hands on you.... 

"I fucking  _hate_  him!" Rose swung around and punched a hole into the wall - an actual  _hole_  through the drywall, one that reached her elbow. She breathed heavily, like an animal and even with one eye, managed to bore a burning mark into her buried fist. Cautiously, Jason stepped around her.

"Why do you hate  _him_?" There was a multitude of people who that might apply to but his guess was that it was Slade who she currently despised. Not sure why though...

"He never -  _ever_  told me about the damn shrink and proceeded to let me think Jason had gone fucking demented for  _hours_! Have you got  _any_  idea how fucking much I wanted to kill Jason for hurting Roy and Lian?! And now I find out it's all because some damn drugs that - that-" With the hitching of her breath, she wasn't able to finish that rant before she punched another part of the wall in.....  _Damn_. 

"Rose, do you need a Valium?" Jason asked, already digging through his utility belt for the bottle of pills he always carried. He offered her one on his palm and despite the rampage and the death glare, she snatched it, popped it quick, swallowing the thing down dry.  

"You sure Slade didn't say  _anything_  about this?" Jason gathered up the courage to inquire when her panting became a little less angry. 

"Maybe he was too busy wrestling AK to give constant status reports?" Ohkay..... Reasoning with a  _Wilson_ , a subject with very few studies behind it so he'd have to wing it but the fact that she didn't break his arm was a good sign, right? 

"Yeah," Rose nodded, "M - maybe." 

She was calmer if only by the tiniest bit she could be, and Jason took the advantage to coax her.

"Let's go find your dad and ask him, yeah? And we'll go make sure AK's alright, too." 

* * *

 

Through the lashes of the eye still present in his skull, Slade watched Wayne leave the safehouse with the quietness he was notorious for. The man thought he was asleep and thus let up his secrecy, which was a surprisingly common occurrence among cautious people the second they thought no one was listening.  _Obviously_ , he wasn't really senseless. Slade would have his sword in hand if he was. 

Earth 52, huh? He'd never heard of it but Slade assumed it was another dimension or some unimportant shit. He actually wasn't that surprised this universe's Wayne couldn't be bothered to drop by and make sure his kid was alive. It was quite apparent that Batman wasn't really dead. Slade had encountered him once or twice during his travels but he hadn't felt like trying to catch him and beating a crumb of decency into him. 

Maybe the next time they crossed paths, he'd have words. 

Slade wasn't very interested in what the alternate Wayne was here for, not since it sounded like he might care about the kid and Jason was fine with him too. It was cute but unnecessary since it went without saying that Wayne had to return home before long and Jason would just miss him all over again, once he remembered what having a sort-of-father was like. 

From beside him - like,  _right_  beside him, the cocoon of blankets rustled, shifted, and the Robin girl popped her head out. She'd been perfectly quiet until now, hiding from the second she returned.

"He gone?"

"Yes," Slade grumbled in response, not prepared for how bone-tired he sounded when speaking aloud. Who knew the fault of mirakuru, the only  _weakness_  - was parenting? Jason wasn't his son but with all the effort and suffering that went into him, he might as well be. He swore he didn't see hell like this with his biological kids. 

"Did you explain to Rose?" He wearily asked, eyes still shut because opening them properly was another burst of stamina all together, one he was gradually mustering.

"Yeah, man, I did. She got all huffy and stormed out. I assumed she was on her way here but you know what they say about  _assuming_. It makes an ass out of you and me." Knowing his daughter and her anger management skills - or lack thereof - fifteen people had died since that conversation with Stephanie happened.

"What about Harper? Did he understand?"  

"Yepperdidoo. He was actually relieved there was an explanation. He's in a pretty awful way, though. Jason broke his jaw and his wrist, three ribs, fractured his eye-"

"I get it." Slade cut her off. "Where's his daughter?"

"A nurse was watching Lian. She's perfectly safe." 

Slade hummed, nodding. Everything appeared to be under control, for the time being. He patted the girl on the head with a mumbled,

"Good work, Stephanie." 

And then he forced his body to rise, pushing himself to his feet with a groan that was unintended but purely exhausted. Mother of  _god_ , he really had to stop adopting people's stray kids if he wanted to live long enough to see his grandchildren - a topic which he was impartial to. He'd noticed Stephanie was covertly sneaking into his family circle and he wasn't sure how to respond.  

"Where is ya going, Sladoh?" Soon,  _really_  soon Slade would have to spell his name out for her but the way she was now reclined on the couch, quite clearly tired herself, he decided to leave that lesson to a later date.

"To check on the kid. You go home or stay here, either way, get some rest." 

Stephanie gave a sleepy salute, burrowing deeper into the couch and yawning.

"Will do, my dude." 

The kid was awake which, with how quiet he was being, was odd. Then again, it made sense he was keeping on the down-low given that he was trying to wiggle his wrist out of the cuff. When he walked in, Jason stopped immediately. 

"How're you feeling?" Slade asked, deciding to ignore Jason's attempts to free himself entirely. He really didn't have the energy for another lecture when he was saving his words for the impending argument with Rose. He sensed it was beyond the horizon.

"Not good." The kid confessed with a sigh, wading the waters of nausea, clearly. While he was still on the LSD, he'd be feeling queasy but when he came off it... well, let's just leave it at he'd be considerably worse.

"That's not surprising." Slade sat on the edge of the bed, a distance away that was comfortable for both of them. Neither liked being crowded. 

"Do you remember any of it?" 

Jason shrugged one shoulder. "Remember hurting Roy... and Rose.... and you." He glanced up with eyes bathed in apprehensiveness,  _caution_. The tip of his tongue flitted over his bottom lip.

"Well, Rose and I have a healing factor, so we're fine," Slade went about assuring him. "And Harper's alright, too. You  _didn't_  kill him, kid." It was as if there was no sweeter arrangement of words that could have come out his mouth; Jason was visibly relieved. From the exhale to the strain releasing itself from his muscles, it was easy to tell.

But it didn't last all that long, not when he still had questions.

"How  _badly_  is he...  _hurt_?" 

"Couple broke bones but he'll live."  That didn't go down as well. The kid had to have known broken bones was the best case scenario but the  _face_  he made.... 

"Why did I do that, Slade?" Jason pretty much whispered that part and it dawned on Slade that  _none_  of them had let the kid in on the whole drug business. And so he indulged Jason with the nitty-gritty of what lead them to this moment but the reaction he got was close to nothing, say for the mild slump in the kid's posture.

"So that's it, huh?" He asked, defeated. "That jackass shrink did all this for giggles? He drugged me just to run some - some fucking  _sick_  experiment?" Slade gave a grim nod and while he wanted to say something else without knowing what it would be, he decided against it since Wayne returned then and there, Rose was with him and.... mother of God, there was  _two_  of them.

Slade actually felt his temples caving in. 

"Sup, bitch?"  Grinning, the other-Jason gave a mock salute that saw his counterpart bare his teeth from where he was cuffed to the bed.

"Slade, kill him -  _please_." The kid whined. 

"Sorry, kid," Slade  _truly_  was. "That'd destabilize the timeline or some cataclysmic world ending shit." 

"You know we're not from here?" Wayne cocked a brow, not entirely surprised but still somewhat. Slade gestured to that Jason-looking  _thing_  Wayne brought inside. It smirked at him.

"If  _that_  isn't a giveaway then the chat you had with the kid earlier was quite telling.  _Adorable_  that you came all this way...." Slade narrowed his gaze and Wayne did the same until they were caught in a glaring match of epic proportion. Other dimension or not, he didn't like the guy.

"I wasn't going to leave  _my_   _son_  when he needed help."

"And  _I_  helped him," Slade bit, the urge to smack him upside the head getting overwhelming. "He doesn't need  _you_." 

"No, but I wasn't counting on the world's most prolific contract killer taking the time out of his day to get involved."

"At least I 'get involved'. What have you ever done for the kid?" 

"Jesus Christ,  _you_   _two_ ," Rose sighed loudly, disrupting the little argument that both Slade and Bruce were purposefully guiding towards a fistfight. 

"There are  _two_  Jasons, you can both have one." She gestured between the doppelgangers who were idly present, observing their mentors going for each other like teen girls who wore the same shirt to school. Before her dad could start with Bruce again, she sat next to him on the bed and braved the most compromising position to get Deathstroke in, a  _hug_.

" _Thank you_  for saving him, daddy." Rose said into the crook of Slade's neck, all his muscles suddenly rigid, the pallor drained from his face due to the  _horror_  of being embraced. After calming down, she'd properly gone over everything and reached an understanding that Jason would be dead if it weren't for her father's efforts, Jason and a good amount of other people. So yeah, she was gonna torture him with a hug. 

"Mhm," Slade made some uncomfortable noise she'd never heard before, his hands finding her shoulders and pushing a space between them. Rose didn't take it personally. 

"Let's  _not_  go thanking anyone just yet, Rose." He said, awkwardly sweeping his hair behind his ear, distracted gaze traveling to every quadrant of the room that she wasn't inhabiting.  

" _Aww_ ," the Hood-Jason cocked his head with a wide smile when he turned to Bruce, extending his arms like an open invitation. "Father/child hug?" 

Bruce ignored him, brushing past to his counterpart and kneeling by him. With all the chatter and no one paying the Knight a lot of attention, it had gone by unnoticed that his skin had lost every bit of pigment, bleach white, pricked with beads of cold sweat. He was breathing in shallow pants. 

"Jason, are you okay?" Bruce asked, tipping his chin upward with his fingers. Jason's already previously dull eyes were even less focusing this time around, not meeting his even close. He was shaking feverishly, lips moving to try form words he couldn't get audio into. 

"What's wrong with him?" Alert again, Slade leaned in but froze when his hand came upon a hot wet patch staining the sheets;  _blood_. It was easy to miss, the linens were a dark shade of maroon that swallowed up the growing red.

" _Dammit_." Slade and Bruce muttered, synchronous, when it came to light the wound had reopened at some point no one noticed and Jason was bleeding through the gauze, sopping and ruined. Next to the quantities he'd already lost, Slade had a  _right_  to be anxious over this - that ninety percent of his brain he could use at once was jumping to every conclusion, even if it made no sense or couldn't help. His first thought was a blood transfusion, he was a match with the kid but the mirakuru  _would_  kill him. His second thought? Also a blood transfusion.

Wayne must have had the same plan in mind when he snapped a look to his son. 

"Jason, get over here. He needs  _your_  blood." Wayne didn't waste any time, his kid must have understood the urgency when he was already rolling up his sleeve as he approached.

"Rose, go get-"

"On it, dad." Rose spun on her heel, running to collect every bit of equipment they'd need before Slade even had to ask. 

" _Bruce_ ," Hood interrupted them uncuffing his double and laying him flat on the blood-drenched bed. "Isn't the Lazarus Pit gonna fuck with him? It's in my DNA but not his-"

"He'll be fine, Jason." Wayne assured, maybe not entirely 100% sure but what other option did they have? It was Lazarus Pit or it was mirakuru and one of those would be fatal for certain. If Wayne's blood type was a match then he would have offered it up already. 

When laying the kid on his back and tearing the wet gauze and bandages back, Jason whimpered, breathless, weakly tossing. His restlessness was good, however, the major problems would set in if he didn't move. 

"We gotta control this bleeding or any blood we pump in is gonna pour right out." Slade's hands were already over the wound but that wasn't a lot of help. 

"You got any ice?" The Hood-kid asked. Was he  _seriously_  thinking about drinks right now? Ai, he was  _definitely_  the idiot of the Jasons. He didn't wait for a reply that might have just been Slade slapping him, he walked out on them, not that it bothered Wayne.

"He'll come back." Wayne told Slade when his expression gave the question away. And sure enough, he did, Rose in tow. Hood was wrapping a bag of ice in a kitchen towel and pressed it to his double's side, ignoring how he flinched away from it.  _Ahaa_.... Slade saw the method to his madness now. A cold compress made blood vessels constrict and close up faster.  _Less_  of an idiot, it seemed.....

"A blood transfusion will filter out the LSD, too." Wayne stated, hooking the kid up with an IV Rose brought, inserting it into the inside of his elbow, quickly attaching everything that came with it. 

"He  _better_  fucking thank me for this." Hood muttered under his breath, pushing a needlepoint into a visible vein in his wrist. With his spare hand, he held the ice in place but Rose took over with a scowl at him. Slade was inwardly pleased it wasn't every Jason she swooned for.

Maybe there was hope.

Cocooned in a blanket, a weary-looking Stephanie dropped by the door, took one blink at what they were doing, and she said,

"I'll go put the coffee on. Rose, half frothy milk, half black with two sugars - no sweetener, yes?" 

Rose frowned at her. She was disturbed by the girl knowing how she liked her coffee down to the last detail, especially when she'd not had that drink around Stephanie for her to catch any bits of information.

"Uh, yeah.... sure, thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Yeah. It's like that. We missed this, right?


	11. We're All A Little Gay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning, Hood is... special.

"So," Jason sparked his lighter, holding the flame to the cigarette between his lips. He offered Rose a cig from the pack with three left and the scowl he received was not an open invitation for conversation. Hell if he'd ever cared.

"What do we like about him?"

" _Who_?"

"AK,  _duh_." Jason rolled his eyes with the inhale, blowing a smoke ring into the chilly night Gotham air. Trying to bond with his counterpart's lady friend on this rooftop was already going worse than he'd anticipated.

"I'm not going into this with  _you_." Rose tried to slap the cigarettes he extended out his hand but he moved it back too fast and pushed the pack into a compartment of his belt.  _Bitch_.

"Don't wanna gossip about boys?"

"I don't gossip and if I did, I wouldn't do it with  _you_."  _Ouch_. Rose gave her the terrifying  _Wilson eye_ , that cold burning bore of a glare. Legend has it that its sheer intensity had once stifled the words in Batman's mouth.

"Cause I'm the gayer version of your boyfriend and it makes you insecure to think AK might have a non-hetero streak in him?" Taking another puff, Jason turned away from her to gaze upon the city, adding a subtle,

"I like to think we're all a little gay." The way his peripheral caught Rose glancing at him rapidly, he hit a nerve with the former comment. Inwardly, he smirked.

"You.... You think so?" She cautiously inquired, like it was a chore for her. But she  _obviously_  wanted to know.

"Do I think AK is gay? Hell  _no_." Rose gave a quiet exhale of relief which was Jason's cue to continue with his gossip spiel.

"... But I'm  _pretty_  sure he's closeted bi - biromantic,  _at least_. When he was visiting my 'verse, he kept hitting on Roy, thought he was  _really_  pretty. I actually agree with him on that, it's part of the reason I've been sleeping with that redhead for the past one and a half years." It's not like the side-eye and the slow, deep inhale of nicotine was  _supposed_  to be as shady as it came out. The worry on Rose's face was  _astronomical_. Haha. In Jason's defense, AK captured, tortured, replaced and indirectly killed him so  _yeah_ , he didn't feel too bad about reigning a little hell on the guy's life.

" _Roy_? You're  _dating_  fucking  _Roy_?" Rose's hand carded back through her hair, she blew her cheeks out. Seeing her exasperated reaction, maybe Jason went a  _little_  overboard. For the record, it was all true. Interesting that AK never mentioned his double's status with Roy, the reason presumably being how awkward it would make things. Oh, he could have so much  _fun_  with this!

"Yep, been seeing him for over a year now but I've been having sex with him a lot longer than that. Makes you think,  _huh_?" Obviously, she was doing a lot of thinking, if how twitchy she'd become was any indicator. She was fumbling with her hands like she was trying to rub three wishes out of the damn things.

"You're - you're  _sure_  you're queer?"

Nodding very slowly, Jason smiled at her.

"Trust me." He'd make a bet he'd slept with more guys than her.

"That makes  _so_  much  _sense_!" Rose's fingers tightened around locks of her hair, pulling down. "He got so  _upset_  when he hurt Roy! What if Jason's been sleeping with  _him_  all this time -  _God_ , I can't believe I didn't see it.... Jay is  _so_  distant with me."  _Fuck_.... Okay, it started out amusing but seeing the potential cataclysm he caused, Jason let the cigarette fall when he turned around to Rose, taking her by the shoulders. She was actually shaking with the worry.

"Rose, I was  _kidding_ , na? AK's distant with  _everyone_. That's just how he is."

" _You're_  with Roy?" In a gesture to him, the back of her hand hit his chest. Really seemed like she couldn't get over that factor.

"Yeah but I and AK don't  _have_  to have the same life partners." Now was not the time to tell Rose that Jason had a fling with her counterpart but was with Roy the next month. Come to think of it....  _Never_  might be the right time.

"AK jumps a mile if any guy touches him." Jason kept on trying to convince her, partly because a crumb of decency in him wanted to fix the incorrect assumptions he caused.... a far,  _far_  greater part knew Slade would kill him for upsetting his baby girl. Self-preservation is a strong motivator.

"He jumps if  _anyone_  touches him." Rose persisted as if she wanted to believe the conspiracy had any legs to stand on.

"So he's a squirrelly guy," Jason shrugged. "It  _doesn't_  mean he's not into you." Wilsons  _weren't_  supposed to have emotions. It's what he'd counted on but didn't that backfire? Rose was full on having a panic attack on him.

"You said he was  _flirting_  with Roy?"

"Yes but... only to get on my nerves.  _Honestly_ , I think AK would die if a man ever kissed him." Men had, he still wasn't dead. Another thing he probably shouldn't mention.

"He likes  _you_ , okay?"

"How the fuck would  _you_  know? You've never seen us interact when he's not bleeding out." Fair point. No, he had not seen them talk or the way they acted around each other so he couldn't say AK had any feelings for the girl. Honestly, Jason had his doubts his doppelganger was emotionally intact enough to love  _anyone_. For god's sake, he could barely process that Bruce cared for him.

But that didn't mean Jason wasn't  _absolutely_  sure the guy wasn't straight.

"Well, he's not bleeding out anymore -  _you're welcome_  - go ask him if he's got plans of hooking up with his best friend."

"Are you fucking  _crazy_?"

" _Yes_... Less than your boyfriend but yes. He's actually clinically insane while I'm just an unreasonable bitch."

Somehow, Rose managed to ignore him there but that was because she probably had a lot of experience ignoring Jasons. Being beside herself was a far better way to keep occupied.

"He's in quite a bit of pain right now,  _Hood_. I'm not going to go ask him  _anything_." Or then she didn't want the answer. Jason  _totally_  understood, of course, many a lady had felt similar dread at the thought of losing his interests.

"Then don't. Let's change topics." Jason selected a new cig and put it between his teeth, managing to talk past it.

"Has AK still got that  _adorable_  crush on Babs?"

" _What_? Stop  _talking_ , Hood."

Jason shrugged in response, grinning to himself with how much power he currently had over her. Rose didn't even  _know_  the strings of emotional destruction at his fingertips. You might think what he'd done so far was bad but he'd held his tongue about that time he was out and about a few years ago, minding his own business when he bumped into one Slade 'Deathstroke' Wilson.... haha. It got interesting from there.

" _Rose_.... Did you know your dad's got a birthmark  _right_..." he drew a circle underneath his ribs, giving her a sly expression. "....  _Here_?"

Rose turned just enough to stare at him in bewilderment. "....  _Why_  are you telling me this?"

"I'll leave you to agonise over that." Jason dropped the cigarette and from his belt, he produced a chapstick that he lathered over his lips, pursing them. The taste of cherry tingled on his tongue, Roy's favourite which made it his favourite.

"Well, I should be going." He scuffed the smouldering cig's butt with his boot, extinguishing the flame.

"Bruce wants me to patrol tonight." Just why was Jason explaining any of this? He enjoyed narrating his life and every action since he knew how annoying it was.

"Apparently you poor people  _don't_  have a Red Hood here?"

"We have good waste disposal management."

Smirking, Jason imitated a fire sizzling when he poked her in the arm.

" _Burn_."

Rose slapped his hand away but he didn't take offense, chuckling under his breath.

"Sayonara, sweetheart."

* * *

 

".... This is Nyx's brand new liquid lipstick in the shade  _Baby_   _Doll_. It's the hottest thing for green eyes." Stephanie explained what to Jason was utter nonsense, but she seemed to know what she was doing when she applied sticky pale pink makeup onto Hood's  _willing_  lips.

For thirty minutes now, Jason had been perplexed by his counterpart allowing Stephanie to use him as a model for all sorts of powders and gels and glosses and liner pens. What did half of those do, anyway? And why was Hood  _okay_  with this? They were supposed to be 'watching' him since Bruce had gone out to pick up medical supplies and both Wilsons were MIA, but Hood and Stephanie were doing  _makeup_  on the end of the bed.

"This is from Jeffree Star's Blood Sugar palette, its a super sexy bold red with excellent pigment and glow," Stephanie rambled on, patting a hideous abstract sparkly color onto Hood's eyelids with one of the tens of brushes she had. They looked more identical than the resident doppelgangers but apparently, all served a different purpose.

Jason had never been so confused.

" _Jeffree Star_?" Hood cocked a finely gelled and pristinely plucked brow. "Haven't you got Morphe?" Morf -  _what_?

"I appreciate your knowledge of killers brands, J.T, but my Morphe palette is back at home. I've only got the stuff from my utility belt."

"You have  _makeup_  in your utility belt?"

"Never know when you need to freshen up on patrol."

"Or run into a blonde goth chick you gotta look spicy for?" Hood smirked with a suggestive glint in his eyes, which were just  _popping_  with how the red complimented and intensified green.

" _Oh_  yeah..." Steph's face was  _sin_  the way she nipped at her bottom lip, grinning, no semblance of innocent thoughts in her head.

"Were you gay  _before_  Rose?" Hood inquired and Jason would hit him if he was physically capable of leaning that far forward. Just sitting still was a wildfire in his belly, moving would worsen it all. 

"We're all a little gay." The girl replied with confidence.

"I know,  _right_?" Excited, Hood spoke past the clear sparkling gloss Stephanie was caking over the lipstick. Did it need to be repeated that he looked ridiculous?

"Ever hooked up with a girl?"

"....  _Once_." Here's a new one, Stephanie was slightly hesitant to admit that, like she was.....  _Shy_  around the topic. Immediately, Hood's stupid painted face picked up on that too.

"Hey, don't get so timid." Hood punched her lightly on the shoulder, always smiling. "First time I slept with a guy, I broke three ribs because I was hyperventilating so hard."

"Is that even  _possible_?" Stephanie's brows rose with a bit of scepticism and she was right for that since it was impossible. Or it should be, at least.

"I also threw up on him." Hood continued with his head tipped to the side, completely shameless while Jason could feel the burn in his cheeks exceed the heat of his injury.

"Okay, that's fucking  _awful!"_  Steph giggled. "Were you sick or sumthing?"

"Haha,  _nah_  - I  _wish_." How did he manage to grin even more?  _How_  was he  _smiling_  with the details of this story?

"Deepthroating is harder than it looks... or my gag reflex certainly thought so." Oh, Jesus Christ, someone kill him. Jason's face was hidden in his hands and he kept praying for someone to walk in and stop this. Or pleading with a higher power for instant death.

"And he  _still_  wanted to sleep with you after you puked on him?  _Who_  is that desperate?" Stephanie was in ten forms of disbelief, jaw agape despite the extreme amusement.

"He shall remain unnamed." Hood was  _way_  too fucking chill about this. Had he been this lacking for a crumb of dignity the last time Jason saw him?

" _But_.... It rhymes with Myle Mainer. And he can't be blamed for being  _desperate_  to tap  _this_." Gesturing to himself with a flourish, he flashed his teeth and Stephanie made some cat noise, pawing with hooked fingers in Hood's direction.

"Who  _else_  you screwed?" She slyly inquired while she emphasized his freckles with brown eyeshadow on the tip of a fine small brush.

"Hmm..." Hood looked up as he thought and that alone made Jason think that list was  _long_. Please,  _please_  don't let him work down it.

"In which order?"

"Heroes, villains, women, men, and throw in some aliens too."

"Kara Danvers, Kori Anders, Rose, an immortal chick named Essence, Talia al Ghul - I had a fling with a flight attendant once - Roy Harper-"

" _No_  fucking way!"

"Ya-huh. Still fucking him to this day,  _by_   _the_   _way_. And then there was  _Myle Mainer_ , a shit tonne of rogues when I was bored," Hood took a deep breath and just listening to him, Jason felt breathless too. And.... No,  _not_  inferior. Being a slut didn't mean that Hood stood on any higher grounds.

**"Don't slut shame him! Sex work is work too, y'know. Ignorant kids...."**

**" ~~You don't really care, Joker. Face it, you just like the sound of your own voice~~."**

**"It's not just me, the whole audience went nuts when I came back."**

**" ~~We don't tell you this enough, but you're fucking demented~~."**

**"Oh, no, no, no! I'm more clued in than anyone. One might even call me _super-sane_!" **

**" ~~Yeah, someone who's not sane. Like you~~."**

".... Now, this is the part where my sex life gets  _really_  weird so buckle up. Ahem, I was undercover a couple of years ago in Black Mask's criminal empire, a  _real_  cutthroat industry ran by a man who doesn't trust  _anyone_. So to get into his  _favor_....."

Stephanie's jaw dropped, hand clapping over her gaping mouth.

"J.T, you  _didn't_!"

Grinning, Hood nodded, utterly flagrant and....  _proud_.

"Does your  _boyfriend_  know?"

"Yes but we weren't a thing when I did it. Or not exclusive, at least." And that made it alright to... to do all of  _that_? For fuck's sake, the closest proximity he'd had to Black Mask during his adult life was shoving him out of a window and while Hood was whoring himself up the corporate ladder.

"Jesus,  _Hood_ , you're  _such_  a fucking harlot." Jason scoffed, rolling his eyes. In the past, when he called his doppelganger a slut, a whore, a hooker, en escort and everything in that category, he meant it as an insult and not an accurate description.

"Is it cold up there on your high horse, AK?" Hood cast him a know-it-all look, blinking with those distracting fake lashes.

"You're  _me_. You've slept with all those girls,  _at least_ -"

"I  _haven't_. I don't know half those people."

"You  _don't_?" Hood looked slapped by that but the blissful silence of his shock wasn't a lasting one. A new mischievous light joined the artificial ones Stephanie put on his face as he scootched over, across the bed.

Jason was within range to kick him...

"If not them,  _who_  has had the pleasure of sharing your nights?" Oh, he could  _not_  have been any more of an arrogant jerk when he asked that, of course, it didn't help that he looked fresh out of RuPaul's Drag Race with all the sparkly shit all over his mug.

"Bitch, I will  _break_  your whole entire ribcage..." Jason threatened and he would, but there was a grey lining that they were both aware of.

"Do that and you'll rip out your stitches." The moron cheerfully told him just as Steph plunked down beside Hood with an expectant expression and bout of amnesia concerning her beauty guru session.

"Aww, are you  _embarrassed_  to tell us?" She jeered and Jason wanted the earth to swallow him whole, all the way down into the bowels of hell.

" _No_..." He murmured moodily, glaring out the corner of his eye at nothing very intently.

" _C'mon_ ," Hood urged, nudging him with his boot because yes, this idiot wore combat boots to bed. It was strange, no matter he was just sitting there.

"We wanna know the dirty deets."

"Leave me alone, bitch."

**"We're enjoying this conversation, birdie, let them continue!"**

**" ~~Why? It's obvious he's only ever slept with Rose - _willingly_ , of course~~."**

**"Really? Only her? Jaylad, your twinsie would be at home working the streets and you're exclusive to that Rosie girly?"**

**" ~~Maybe he _likes_  her~~?"**

**"Weird...."**

" _Wait_  - you've  _only_  slept with Rose,  _haven't_  you?" Hood's brows arched with realisation, as if it was actually  _that_  surprising. He'd made it clear in the past that he didn't like sex.... but with Rose, it was different.  _Safe_.  _Voluntary_.

Not that his stupid counterpart would understand that.

Or anything at all, for that matter.

"Dude, that's so cute!" Stephanie punched him in the arm, a gesture she no doubt meant as a harmless jab at him but it wasn't all that harmless, not since the bandages around his bicep - y'know, where the fucking  _bullet_  hit - weren't exactly protective against impact. Jason hissed past his viced teeth, otherwise he'd be gasping in pain. He clamped his hand over the wound, glaring at Steph and her already apologetic expression but not a verbal expression of it.

"Seriously,  _just_  Rose?" Hood was smirking, he couldn't care less about the visible torrents of pain going through Jason's arm.

" _Yes -_   _just_  Rose." He snapped, the burning sensation lessening his patience with these two considerably. Ow,  _dammit_. He removed his palm just long enough to examine the gauze encircling his muscle, relieved when it wasn't forming a red patch all over again. He tried not to think about bleeding since it made him want to throw up to imagine  _Hood's_  blood in his veins.

"You're so damn  _precious_." Hood let him know in a sweet sing-songy voice, tweaking his cheek but he had the decency not to pinch the brand. Jason waved him away in frustration.

"I've slept with twenty-something people since Rose, though. Her dad inclu-" Hurriedly, Jason slapped his hand over Hood's painted mouth, muffling the words.

"Hood, you gross AIDS ridden  _slut_ , do  _not_  finish that sentence." They could have left it there with Jason's mind already scarred by any such idea but then Hood decided to run his disgusting tongue over Jason's palm, grinning at him.

Bruce came in just in time to see Hood be sent clean off the bed by a kick and hit the ground with a laugh that wasn't nearly as obscured by the pain as the hope had been.

"What's going on?" Their adoptive father sighed warily and that was before he saw the aftermath of Stephanie's glow-up when Hood propped himself up on his elbows, quite comfortable to reside on the floor. Probably all of his erotic practises that made him at home on his back...

" _Red_... what happened to your face?"

Hood fluttered his fake lashes prettily, puckering his lips. "You like?"

"Go.  _Away_ , Hood." Jason ordered him, although it was partly a plea with force. The overwhelming, frustrating presence of his counterpart was too much in large doses, mostly since there was no describing his personality for what it was. No describing and no escaping.

To be honest, the man gave him anxiety.

 **" ~~And is that because he's~~** ~~**_fun_ ** ~~ **?"**

**"Oh, I bet you think that, bluebird..."**

Bruce probably saw that in Jason and jerked his head in the direction of the door, motioning for Stephanie and Hood to give them the room. Surprisingly, they listened, Hood picking himself up while Stephanie gathered the various bits of her makeup supplies, overflowing from her arms by the time she had them all.

"Don't let Slade see you like that." Bruce gave Hood as a parting warning and Jason delighted in his lessened merriment when the age-old dark of jealousy took his features by force. He didn't  _want_  to share his Bruce.

Jason was  _thrilled_  if he made his doppelganger's day worse.

"How do you feel?" Bruce asked when the door shut and they were alone.

"Little better." Jason shrugged, honesty coming easier when he didn't have to put up a front to ward Hood off. He didn't ever want the bitch to think Jason  _wasn't_  in a position where he could beat him.

"Good." Bruce said, low, nodding, and he approached with a cluster of medical supplies in his hand. Jason noted that he took his time in coming nearer, letting Jason adjust to the close quarters instead of rushing him. He  _remembered_  that he didn't like sudden approaches...

"No withdrawal symptoms?" Bruce sat at the foot of the bed, leaving a comfortable distance between them but near enough to reach him.

"No." Jason shook his head, becoming consciously aware of just how lowered his caution was with the man this time around. He'd been all up in arms when he'd thought it was his Bruce, afraid the man would make his predicament worse and what did that say about that father/son disaster? It would never mend and that...  _hurt_. 

"Red's blood must've filtered the majority of the drug out of yours." Bruce thought aloud while he tore the thin plastic covering off a packet of gauze, taking a soft perfectly white roll out into his hand.

"We need to change your bandages." Oh...  _Okay_. Jason stiffly, hesitantly, went about removing the old ones, or at least, he tried to but Bruce came just close enough to do it for him. In question, Jason glanced at him. Why wasn't he allowed to do this himself? It was no bother... Hood's dad didn't respond despite sensing the confusion, keeping his eyes trained on the work of unwinding the cottony dressings.

 **" ~~That's right -~~** ~~**_Hood's_ ** ~~ **~~dad~~."**

The padding was Slade's doing, which meant it was almost too tight to breathe against and Bruce no doubt wanted to cut through them or tug harder at the knot, he was patient enough to remain gentle.

"You haven't noticed any...  _abnormalities_ in yourself _,_ have you?" Bruce inquired subtly, carefully peeling the gauze back  _finally_. Biting down on his tongue, Jason couldn't stifle the hiss when cold air brushed against the overly-sensitive area of the wound, surrounded in bruises and dried blood. It looked  _awful_ and felt even worse.

"Like what?" Did Hood trying and succeeding in looking like a drag queen count as abnormal?

**"No, Jaylad. I can't say I was actually surprised. Too bad that bluebird and him weren't in the same dimension from the start since I'm sure he'd be down to be your plaything."**

**" ~~Shut up, Joker~~."**

**"No, I w-w-won't-!"**

Frown creasing his brow, Jason focused on Bruce talking to him to help him push the voices aside. The hands on him, dabbing at the encasing of chafing blood with a disinfectant wipe were  _fire_  but that distracted him too. He liked that.

"Like maybe an increase in your senses? Processing things faster?" Those didn't feel like random questions. Was something wrong?

"Maybe you're recovering faster?"

"Bruce, what are you talking about?" Jason pressed, getting worried by those questions and the lingering way the man eyed his side, hovering his fingerpads over the injury, not touching but the warmth coming off him hurt like hell.

"It's healing well."

"That's good, isn't it?" Why wasn't he answering the first question?  _Why_? He was building up that knot of anxiety in Jason.

"The bruises look around five days old."

"That's...  _not_  possible." Not since he got them barely two days ago.

Bruce exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he sat back, something about his demeanour making Jason grow tense. He had that 'I'm going to tell you something world ending' vibe and in the aftermath of everything, he'd be surprised if any bout of news would truly be devastating. That did not, however, make Jason eager for when he opened his mouth to speak.

"Jason, you know Red died and was brought back to life by the Lazarus Pit?" Well, the bitch might have mentioned that once or  _eighty-four_ times but what the hell did that have to do with Jason?

"Thanks to the water's regenerative properties, he heals faster than normal and has other small enhancements. As you know, we used his blood to transfuse with yours," No. No, no, -  _no_! This could not be going where Jason feared. It was bad enough knowing that  _thing_  was the sole reason he was alive, but that he might have permanent reminders of it?

"..... And I think the Pit's properties might be bonding with your DNA. But since you weren't killed or submerged in the water, I doubt it will be anywhere near as dominant but if it's true, then we should expect to see minor physical changes in you over the next few days."

"Like what?" Please don't say-

"Your eyes, for example. They might develop green flecks." Oh fuck. He said  _it_. Jason gave a groan of indignancy, posture slumping without care for the pain it caused.  _No...._

"But I  _like_  my eyes." He whined.

"I said  _might_. It's not certain." Bruce explained as if that was any light at the end of the tunnel, applying some anti-bruise cream in careful strokes over Jason's ribs, the chill hitting bone-deep.

"Another thing is, your hair might lose pigment."

"Like that fucking losing streak Hood has across his forehead? No.  _No_  thanks, let's drain this fucking blood since I'd rather take my chances without it."

"Even if we bleed you dry, the damage would be done. Remember Red bled out after Dick stabbed him? You'd just come back a few days later." He spoke about that incident with such ease, had he really gotten over it or was this just him being so detached from emotion that he didn't look anguished over  _it_?

"So... I'm  _immortal_?"

"No. Red, for instance, can die from most things a normal person would. Cold, hunger, age, you can burn him alive, decapitation is something he won't bounce back from and if he loses a limb, it won't grow back. The Lazarus Pit  _isn't_  the mirakuru serum. Your double's healing is accelerated when it comes to broken bones and cuts, bullet wounds, shrapnel, things like that."

"Those are all  _really_  good tips, Bruce." Did the man realise he just told Jason all the ways he could dispose of his counterpart with prejudice? Probably only when he mentioned it since his expression changed a little.

"But.... what if I don't want any of that? I've... I've heard some of the stuff Hood said about the Lazarus Pit and it's...  _scary_." With voices of his own already playing ping-pong with his sanity, he was sure anything more in his head would be too much. It already felt too overwhelming.

Bruce was sympathetic to his fears, maybe Hood had expressed them in the past, and he reached from the wound to place his hand onto Jason's shoulder. The weight and heat was...  _comforting_  when it shouldn't be, a feeling he certainly couldn't get from Slade, no matter how much the man had done for him. Slade Wilson was a lot of things but sympathetic and comforting weren't among them.

"I don't think you'll have any of your counterpart's symptoms, given how it's been almost six years since he was subject to the Pit, which means its side effects have gotten considerably milder." His fingers tightened ever so slightly. "And you were exposed to one percent of what he was. I wouldn't put money on you having any negative side effects and  _if_  I'm wrong,  _if_  you suffer  _at all_  from Red's blood, I'll come back here and we'll figure out a way to fix it. I  _promise_." So much conviction, Jason believed he was telling the truth and again it hit him that there was a Bruce in the world who didn't want him in pain or hurting or lost or drowning in the sense of abandonment. Because this Bruce....  _cared_.

Jason refused to let him see what that meant to him since he's sure Bruce already knew.

"I count my hair changing colour as suffering." He smirked, bitter-sweet enough to draw a small fake smile out of Bruce as he moved upward from Jason's shoulder to brush his hair behind his ear with a tipped head, perhaps imagining a white streak here or there. Jason would invest in dye if that harrowing day ever came. They were already stuck as identicals so the less he resembled Hood, the better.

"What happened to your face?" Bruce asked when he noticed the torn seams of the brand, covered by a dark scab, the width of which made Jason afraid it would scar worse than the damn thing had before.

"I got slapped." He explained, raising a self-conscious hand over the mark the Joker gave him, one among hundreds.

"By Rose." Jason added. "But I deserved it. I pointed a gun at her.... then Slade kicked me so I stabbed him with his sword and tore his lung out as punishment." Bruce's lower lip grew stiff out of disgust and Jason didn't blame him for the accurate reaction, that  _was_  a rather stomach-turning tale he just accounted.

"Slade is  _incredibly_  understanding with you, Jason." Was all Bruce could say, which, well... what else was there that he could say? Good job, son? Why hasn't he killed you already? Good question.

"I know." Jason leaned against the headboard while Bruce was finishing up putting everything back the way it should be.

"I think he feels sorry for me."

"I think he cares about you."

"You  _do_?" Jason cocked his head, one brow arched. He knew that Slade did to some extent, maybe out of habit, but to hear Bruce admit that....

"You don't seem to like him being around me."

Bruce admitted to that too with a nod as he tucked the end of the bandage to be held beneath another, secure unless pulled against hard, unlike Slade's work.

"That's because he's Deathstroke and  _him_  I don't want near you. Slade Wilson is...  _acceptable_. Mostly. But you start dressing like him and taking contracts the way Rose does and I will come right back here to lecture you." Humour? Was that a bit of  _humour_  coming from  _Bruce Wayne_?

"I don't like orange." Jason grinned. "I prefer-"

" _Red_?" His sort-of-dad interjected with a too-knowing smile that turned Jason's stomach to imagine himself donning anything  _red_. Not now, not ever, not because of  _you-know-who_....

"Don't  _ever_  talk to me again." Firm, Jason said with a stern face that didn't last two seconds before he burst out  _laughing_. He didn't know what sparked the fit but the funniest thing in the world didn't appear to have a name or face or even a reason for him to find something this hilarious. Frowning in amused concern, the corners of his lips tugging upward, Bruce laid a steadying hand on his back to control the tremors of merriment from tearing his stitches.

"Jason, I  _think_  the pain killer is kicking in."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sigh.... oh, Jason. And the other Jason.


	12. R.I.P Arkham Knight

Slade and Bruce.... Well, they'd go up like Mount Vesuvius if they found out Jason took it upon himself to sneak his way out of the safe house. He'd be back before anyone's the wiser but he really,  _really_  needed to go see his friend.

It was best to slip in under the cover of night; the kitchen window still didn't lock properly but Jason supposed he should be grateful that gingersnap hadn't gotten it fixed yet, otherwise it wouldn't have been as easy to gain access. Sure, climbing and pulling himself up onto fire escapes - or walking in general - hurt like fuck but it was less painful than not seeing Roy for another day.

Roy probably didn't want to see him after Jason nearly killed him, but a stupid part of him hoped Rose had meant it when she said Roy wasn't mad at him.

_"52-Roy wasn't angry when you pretended to be Hood. He's the forgiving sort of person."_

**" ~~You can only push someone so far~~."**

**"Agreed! Robin, you are**   _ **sickeningly** _**optimistic."**

A build-up of anxiety was swelling in Jason's chest when he padded quietly to the light shining into the hallway from Lian's bedroom, where he was surprised to find that Roy was not asleep or resting as he should be so soon out of hospital, but he was sitting on the edge of his daughter's vacant and made bed, holding his head in his hands while the floor glistened wetly. There was a pail of warm soapy water with a mop standing out of it, nearby but whatever chemical was in it hadn't been able to get the black stain of blood out of the sleek wood floorboards. 

The sight and memory of causing it made Jason cringe. He still couldn't get it out of his head how easy it had been to hurt Roy so badly that he came close to killing him. And barely any effort went into it.

".... Roy?" At his cautious, worried inquiry, the archer looked up from his hands and it made the cast around his wrist tenfold more obvious. It had been so  _effortless_  to break that part of him. 

Roy gave a tired, half-hearted wave and his reaction made Jason frown to himself. Why wasn't he afraid that he came here so quietly? Shouldn't he at least be angry? It didn't look vaguely like he was and Jason could only put it down to him being out of hospital  _way_  too soon. Who even let him out?

Roy did something with his hands, some purposeful motioning and Jason made the slow realisation that was sign language. He wasn't fluent in it but he understood enough to get it.

_"I was wondering if you'd come."_

Jason was about to respond in sign but that was stupid of him, since Roy could hear him just fine. No, he wasn't talking because Jason  _cracked_  his jaw.

**"I always did think he'd be better if he was quiet."**

**" ~~I know, right?~~** ~~**_Amazing_ ** ~~ **."**

**"Kinda reminds me that we've been letting our Robin get away with a lot of opinions lately."**

**" ~~Hmm. We might have to do something about that. Oh,~~** ~~**_Jason_ ** ~~ **~~.~~..." **

Roy gestured for Jason to join him on the edge of the bed and hesitantly, he approached, so perplexed as to how ginger could be this calm with his presence. Carefully, he sat beside the archer but made sure to keep the space a meter between as if he had to settle Roy's nerves. He seemed fine. Totally fine if a little under the influence of pain drugs.

"... Where's Lian?"  He gathered the courage to inquire before he let the silence grow too long. He'd not seen that unusually resourceful little girl since she shot him. And threw a bomb at him.  _Goddamn_ , she would grow up to be one hero they should all fear.

 **"** **_Hero_ ** **? Pft. I think she'll be one helluva villain!"**

 _"Living room. Sleeping."_ Roy signed.  _"I couldn't get anyone to take her while I clean up."_

"W... want me to ask Rose to come over?" Jason suggested, hoping he could help even a little bit. He had to do something. 

_"I think she should be with you. It's fine. I'll try to get this mess tidied up tonight, before Lian sees it again."_

Jason pushed off the bed, getting himself a confused glance from Roy until him grabbing the mop must've shined light. 

"It's the least I can do." Boy, if that wasn't the truth. He spilled this blood, Roy shouldn't have to clean it. Didn't stop him trying, though, he made to stand but Jason stopped him with a hand on his chest, carefully pushing him back onto the bed.

"Don't. You're probably hella dizzy since -  _y'know_  - I concussed you." 

Nodding slightly, Roy succumbed to the smarter choice here, making a 'thanks' with his hands, one Jason chose to ignore since  _no_. No, Roy should not be thanking him when Jason ought to be on his knees, pleading with the man to not hate him. 

Jason went about scrubbing the blood out of the cracks in the wood floorboarding, pushing the memory of how they were made out of his skull. If guilt was a person then Jason was pretty sure it was him.

"I'm really sorry, Roy." He mumbled towards the ground he was trying to clean, watching as the water diluted the dark patches. Through his lashes, he glanced at Roy, who'd been waiting for his gaze to let him know that,

_"I know. It wasn't your fault. I'm the one who ignored all the warnings about that shrink. I should be apologising."_

"But I hurt you-"

_"I broke your trust. What happened after was because of me."_

"Would you  _stop_  taking the blame for me beating you? Jesus, what have you got -  _Stockholm syndrome_?" 

Slightly amused, Roy shook his head. 

 _"Not that I know. Jason, whether or not you wanna admit it, this is as much my fault as the shrink's. I'm so sorry."_  Despite there being no words to back it up, Jason saw it in his eyes that he meant that. It hurt something in his chest but... maybe he was right. Maybe this wasn't solely his fault but an unfortunate combination of several bad factors. 

Jason leaned the mop against the wall and he went to hug Roy, careful to not hurt him. 

"I'm really glad I didn't kill you." Jason said into his shoulder and Roy was of a like mind, agreeing with a nod of his head while he put his unbroken arm around Jason. 

Gunshot wounds aside, Jason felt a world better after this transaction. It honestly seemed like it was the only thing he needed.

"Daddy, I had a bad dream..." Mumbling, a half-asleep Lian came in, dragging her feet while she rubbed at her eyes with an uncoordinated hand. Jason broke away from Roy  _at once_ , startled by her sudden appearance but she wasn't in her right mind enough to properly register him. She crawled up onto her bed and all but fell into her father's lap. 

Smiling, Roy pulled her pink blanket over her while he adjusted his arm for her to rest more comfortably.

"The dream about the red-eyed bunny?" He asked her and when he spoke, his voice was severely muffled by not being able to open his mouth. It probably hurt like hell but Lian wasn't exactly fluid in sign language.

"No...." Lian yawned, eyes closing. "I had a nightmare.... where JayJay and you weren't friends anymore. I hope he's feeling better, daddy."

Glancing at Jason, Roy gave him a little smile.

"He is, baby girl. He doesn't feel so sick any more."

"Hmm..." Lian burrowed deeper into his chest, saying with a final tired breath,

"I'm happy. I miss him."

* * *

  
Hood was an idiot, through and through.... but he was also  _Jason_  which meant he could occupy Rose's thoughts more than she let him. She tried to push aside the niggling sparks of doubt that moron managed to light in her because her Jason was obviously  _not_  gay. That wasn't the issue, however, since it left her asking herself what was he? What were  _they_? She'd threatened to murder her dad if he hurt Jason but had also been ready to put a bullet into Jason's head before everything was cleared up. And then she proceeded to kill for him.

They weren't dating but she swore she loved him. Or felt something very similar to love for him. But Hood made Rose realise she had no idea how Jason saw her. She had to get some definition to their relationship, it was too confusing the way it was.

Heart in her throat, she stepped into the room they'd managed to get Jason to stay in, walking into darkness and the impending dread of discovery.

"Jay?" Her voice was almost too small to hear. "You awake?"

"No."

Despite herself, she managed a tiny smile of relief. You don't realise how much you miss one Jason until you've dealt with the other. She traced his voice to the window he'd somehow managed it to....  _after_  dad  _and_  Bruce told him not to move if he could help it. Rose wasn't sure he realised how easy it was to reopen his stitches and she did doubt that Hood would spare any of his blood again.

"Why aren't you in bed?" Rose came up behind him, carefully encircling her arms around his middle, high up, near his ribs to avoid the gauze. He didn't flinch from her touch as he would have with most other's. That meant something, right? She was confused, however, as to why he felt cold, as if he'd just come indoors...

"Cause if I just lay around I'm gonna go mad... Or get blood clots."

"Uh-huh." Rose hummed in understanding, resting her chin on his shoulder comfortably, gazing at the city through the window that reflected them. She noticed that Jason was wearing an uncertain expression between emotions. 

"What's wrong?"

"Not sure." Jason gave a small shrug.

"What do you mean you're not sure?" Silence ticked for a moment, deafening silence before Jason replied hesitantly.

".... Not sure what to do now."

Slowly, Rose unwound her arms, letting him go as she walked around to face him.  He looked tired, the circles beneath his eyes proved it. Probably not the moment to dig deeper but she didn't care.

"Jason, what are we?"

He frowned. "Uhm,  _people_?"

"I mean you and me.  _Us_." She was aware she was pushy there, prying but shouldn't she know his investment in this?

Unsurprisingly, he didn't appear to have an answer ready, exhaling uncomfortably as he looked away.

"Rose, what's this about?"

Carefully, she took his face in her hand and turned it back around to her, fingers lightly framing his jaw.

"It's about me wanting more than just sex from you." For a beat, his eyes met hers, looking for sincerity. It was so strong that he caught it quick.

"That's uh..... sudden." His tongue traced his lips, nervously rubbing his hands against his thighs. He wasn't wrong, Rose did kinda spring that on him but their recent brush with death and Hood's loud-mouthiness put things nearer to perspective. Or lack of it.

"Hood said you.... showed an  _interest_  in Roy."

The sigh was a scoff this time, garnering more emotion than anything so far.

"All these  _fucking_  people thinking I'm gay....  _Rose_ , Hood is a fucking idiot-"

"So he was  _lying_?"

"N... No, but... I was only doing that to annoy Hood."

Rose arched a brow, her turn to search him for any dishonesty but he was practically begging her to believe him with those pleading puppy dog eyes. She had already determined the other-Jason was full of shit so she didn't have to look for a long period of time.

"Rose, I  _promise_  I'd  _never_  hook up with a guy. You - you know I-"

"I know, Jay. I was just making sure." Rose slid her hands onto his shoulders, gripping them reassuringly. His tone suggested the first phase of panic, the stammering. Honestly, Jason panicked from such menial things.

"But I still want to know since if it's never gonna be more than carnal, then... I'm not-"

"I get it, Rose. I do." His hands found hers, on his shoulders, enclosing.

"But I'm no good at emotion and..... I've never had a relationship like you want. I... Don't know  _how_."

"What, you think  _I'm_  the expert in functioning relationships?" Rose cocked a brow, tipping her head.

"Jay, I once  _married_  a guy to protect him from dad after he got Deathstroke sent to Arkham."

"You're....  _Married_ , Rose?" Part of Jason sunk beneath the depths of hopelessness that was bordering on despair, completely missing the initial point.

"I  _was_. Temporarily - but it's not important."

"Seems like something you could have mentioned." He murmured under his breath, thinking over it.

"So does your doppelganger dating Roy and  _you_  pretending you were Hood, which means fake-dating Roy."

".... Fair."

"Mhm." Humming, Rose agreed with a bob of her head. "Think about what I said."

"I did."

" _Already_?"

"Yeah. To be honest, I thought we were already a thing." Rose's eyes widened at the suddenness of the kiss, gentle though it was. For a moment, she marveled at the confidence Jason had gained in these gestures as opposed to the panic attacks a kiss used to give him or the hours she would spend assuring him she wouldn't hurt him when that happened.

"You're one of the few people in my life who doesn't suck." Jason told her when he pulled away, lips three inches from hers.

"Jason, that's so....  _Sweet_?" Probably the most romantic thing he had ever said.

"Does that mean-"

"Just  _don't_  tell Slade. He'll kill me for real." The smile in his voice was evident, it was good to hear him happy and the fact that his investment wasn't just carnal elated Rose, but there was one  _giant_  misconception he presented.

"Jay, you really think dad hates you being with me?"

Jason blinked slowly, a tad confused. "He  _broke_  my arm in two places during training when he found out I slept with you."

"I agree that was an irrational reaction,  _but_  you  _slept_  with me. Dad wants someone who cares about me and not just sex. We weren't ever an official thing, just each other's pastimes."

"But I  _do_  care about you-"

"Have you  _met_  my father? It's black and white for him." 

Jason chewed on his lip, considering that a tick before he nodded.

"Okay, I think I get it. Slade doesn't mind  _me_  being with you, but he can't stand the idea of me using you for your body?"

"Essentially." And that was dangerously close to half decent parenting on Slade's part. He better be careful unless he wanted people to see him in a warmer light.

And Jason had the same thoughts.

"That's weirdly caring of him. I'm genuinely so uncomfortable when he reveals his human side."

"I know, right? I might prefer Deathstroke's personality.... But that's enough about daddy. I want you back here," Rose pulled him yet again onto her lips, her hands cupping his face on either side.

Jason was content with the moment, she could tell, as was she and somehow, they ended up on the bed. No heated kisses and no clothes coming off viciously, just Rose nuzzled into Jason's side, drawing shapes into his exposed abdomen with her index. Even if she'd been in the mood for getting it on, Jason could barely walk around the room with the two bullets he took. He wasn't in any condition for vigorous activity. Besides, this was Slade's safe house, there had to be some rule against screwing your boyfriend in your dad's bed, right?

If there wasn't, she was paving the road for it.

"Jay?" She spoke up after some while of silence, wondering if he was asleep. He was motionless enough to be the part but he shifted slightly at her voice.

"Hm?"

"When you've recovered a bit more, I want to go somewhere else."

".... Like where?"

Rose shrugged, pushing deeper into him. She hadn't given that part much thought but she knew she didn't want to stay in this debauchery ridden city any longer than she had. The small exposure and its poisons were sinking past her skin. This place... it wasn't good for Jason, either, not with all its reminders and not to mention, they were half a kilometer from Arkham Asylum. It was a constant ugly glaring memory. 

"Venezuela is nice?" She joked.

" _Pass_. I can't go to South America, I'm supposed to be serving five thousand to life." 

"Impressive. What about somewhere that's not the USA?" 

Jason fell silent for a moment, thinking. Head pillowed on his chest, Rose listened to his heartbeat while she waited, counting the beats of the nameless rhythm. Honestly, she'd expected some level of conflict regarding this matter from him, given how he grew up in Gotham and all. But maybe his nightmarish formative years weren't worth staying for.

"... I kinda like Europe." He admitted quietly, as if the notion was embarrassing. Jason always got sheepish when it came to things he liked as opposed to how strongly he voiced his dislikes. It was strange but another of the quirks that made him up.

"I like it too." Rose didn't actually, not specifically but for his sake, it was her new favourite region.

"We should visit it soon."

"I think being somewhere else... away from Gotham, would be nice." 

"Not having capes and crazy mercenaries and corrupt shrinks and conspiracy theories for a bit sounds therapeutic."

Jason cringed at the word, she felt it in the way his muscles stiffened. 

"Don't mention therapy to me again.  _Ever_." Rose would give it a reasonable period of time but whether he liked it or not, she was going to drag him in to speak to a mental health professional at some point again. He needed it more than before. 

At some point, they both drifted off despite how hard Rose tried to convince her body she could go another hour of being awake to plan where she would drag Jason with her to. When she awoke again, she was relieved to find her arms still tightly around him. Sighing comfortably, all was well until the combined scent of marshmallows and nicotine hit her senses. Jason  _hated_  sweets and she'd forced him to give up his chain-smoking ways a few months ago, this was not him she was smelling.

Frowning, confused, Rose propped her head up on her hand and blinking back tiredness, was subject to a start when spiky strands of golden blonde hair fanned out on the pillow, attached to the  _thing_  that was breathing on her beneath the blanket, arms circling her middle and Stephanie's  _leg_  was draped over hers. 

And with the horror of that, the next thing Rose became aware of was that Jason hadn't gone anywhere and was reclined at Stephanie's other side, laying on his back with, folded arm acting as a pillow while he took slow drags of a cigarette. It was Jason alright, just not her version of him. Her Jason was nowhere to be seen, maybe he woke up hours ago and left her unprotected from these fiends. 

"Well, good morning." Hood winked at her with a smirk and Stephanie sat up, revealing her grin when the blanket fell back.

"You sleep so beautifully." She let Rose know with the creepiest glimmer in her eye.

" _DAD_ -!" Rose screamed when something finally fell over the edge of how much she could take from these two. Much like Jason did the other day, only with more pent up violence, she kicked Hood off the bed, onto the floor by the time the door opened. Stephanie rolled, off the edge and underneath the bed, scurrying far enough to hide from sight.

It wasn't her father who came in, it was Bruce which  _damn_ , she'd actually wanted Slade that time but he was probably still off in that place he'd vanished to a few days ago. It wouldn't be unlike him to bail on a situation when the chaos was over.

"Rose, what's wrong?" Bruce asked, concerned by her hysterical tone until he sighted Hood, picking himself off the floor and apparently, he had no more questions.

" _Jason_ , I told you to leave her alone."

"So AK's allowed to cuddle up to my partner and spend as much time with him as he wants, but I can't be in the same room as his girlfriend?" Hood swept dust off himself with his hands as he gave his indignant self-righteous little rant and by Bruce's expression, he wasn't having it. Rose was beginning to warm up to this man.

"You realise you're harassing  _Slade Wilson's_  daughter, don't you? She says one word to her father and I can't do anything to save you." Bruce spoke with such severity and it wasn't out of place by any means. Rose only had to mention that Hood was upsetting her and poof, no more Hood.

"You know Deathstroke's weakness is drain cleaner, don't you?" Hood cocked a brow with a smug smirk like he won a battle of wits with that remark.

"Assuming you can strap him down and fill his veins with it,  _yes_ , he'll feel it but that is  _not_  the point, Jason.  _Leave_  Rose alone. She hasn't done anything to you." Amen. Rose could get behind that, especially since the tone used was like scolding a small naughty child. The mental age was about right for Hood. 

Hood crossed his arms slowly, pursing his lips with a cynical look, eyes narrowing on Bruce but the man wasn't intimidated in the least.

"I can't believe you favour  _me_  over me. All you do is defend AK and protect him."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling deeply with the reappearance of the argument they'd had more times than there were stars in the sky.

"Jason, unlike you, he doesn't have brothers who care about him and he doesn't have a version of me who does either. Given how I have not seen him in  _seven_  months and we're not staying here much longer, I think you can put aside your childish jealousy and stop sabotaging what semblance of a life the Knight has despite what he did to you. You couldn't care less about who I spend my time with when we're in our dimension, so I implore you to put that skill into use now and when we go home, if you're still feeling neglected, we can do something about that." Well holy mini-rant, Batman, Rose couldn't have said it better and by Hood's sulky but surrendering expression, he took that to heart. 

Fucking good because if he persisted, Rose would have gotten Slade to handle this. 

And handled it he would have but with 100% fewer words than Bruce.

 Gathering the thin cover around her body, Rose pushed herself off the bed and stretched the morning stiffness out of her joints.

"Bruce, do you know where dad is?" She asked while she combed unruly strands of her hair down with her fingers. Damn, having long hair meant it turned into a tumbleweed overnight.

"I'm sorry, Rose, I haven't seen Slade for a little bit." 

Rose chewed at her lip. She was beginning to go from wondering about her father's present location to worrying about him, no matter that he was Deathstroke. But then they heard the scuffling of Stephanie dragging herself from underneath the bed, ears pricked when she heard a conversation she wasn't part of.

"My dudes, Sladoh isn't missing or anythin'. He went to go find all those showy tapes of Joker's and the files and those things an' destroy 'em, I guess. Y'know, to stop this mess happening again." She explained, pulling herself onto her feet and brushing the thick layer of dust from her top.

"Dad... told  _you_  all that?"  Rose didn't sit comfortably in the idea that suddenly Stephanie was Slade's trusted second when there'd been no transition at all. But then again, Steph did know all matter of things no one had clued her in on.

"I just  asked him where he was going." She shrugged, tidying up her hair while she did until something as spontaneous as herself occurred to her.

"Do you mind if I call him dad too? I mean, sure it'd make us step-siblings of sorts but that's also the case with that pretty boy you sleep with so I figured, hey, it's not  _that_  weird. If your dad sorta adopting Jay doesn't get in the way of you two being a hot power couple then it's totally fine for me and you too,  _right_?"

"....  _What_?  _Stephanie_ ," Rose took the girl by her shoulders and a shiver of excitement went through her smaller body, something Rose had to ignore entirely if she wanted to move on with this much-needed discussion.

"You and I will  _never_  be a thing for two reasons. A, you're  _sixteen_ -years-old and B, I. Am.  _Not_  gay." Steph really had to get this fact into her head but while she tried making it clear, Rose saw the girl's entire world crumble down. At first, a small smile of disbelief flickered but if faded along with all traces of hope in her eyes. Rose had to remain stern in her belief that this was for the best, no matter how it tugged on her heart's strings to upset Stephanie.

Hood's arms came from nowhere, pulling Stephanie into them and she went in willing defeat, slumping into his chest.

"It's alright, Steph. We don't need this dimension and all of its disgusting hetero people. Like - is anyone here  _not_  straight? Never mind, of course not. Stephy, don't worry, 52 has a Rose and she is single as fuck-"

" _Jason_ , I will say this exactly  _once_ ," Bruce cut in, his voice a relieving authority. "When you and I go home, Stephanie stays here. Remember if you will what happens when two counterpart's spend enough time in the same dimension?" 

Rose couldn't take their debate or arguments starting again, she distanced herself out of the room and down the hall. She wanted to find Jason, in desperate need of his refreshing atmosphere after prolonged exposure to his insufferable doppelganger. God, she might require a long hot shower after that experience. 

Hood was  _disgusting_. Not because of his sexual orientation or anything like that, there was just something about him that made her skin crawl.

That detox she needed came in the form of her own Jason, except he was sitting slumped over on the bathroom floor with his face in his hands, a damp towel draped over his head. He didn't even look up when he heard her come in, her steps increasing in speed when she feared something was wrong with him.

"Jay, what happened?" Rose knelt by him, her hand on his shoulder and he shifted with a low sigh, lifting his head slightly and rubbing his palms together, the first thin layer of skin wearing. His eyes met hers, not tired but plagued by something between hopelessness and frustration that made him look less alive.

"Rose... look what that bastard's blood did to me." Slightly, Jason shifted the towel that acted as a shawl, revealing part of his hair that had gone completely snowy all the way to the roots. It was a very minor thing, less by a thousand compared to what Rose had been expecting and the cause of his turmoil made her inner self go _really?_

"That's  _seriously_  what's got you sprawled out on the bathroom floor? Get some dye if you can't imagine anything  _worse_  than white hair." To emphasize it, Rose brushed locks of her ivory tresses behind her ear. He watched her movement closely before he pulled the towel entirely off and this time around, she might have understood his issue since it wasn't just his bangs that inverted on him, but more or less all of his hair with only a few streaks of black remaining. 

Okay,  _wow_. She was sympathetic to him now.

"Uhm...." Rose was at a loss of any words of comfort when to her, this wasn't the worst thing in the world but clearly the same idea did not go for Jason. 

"At least, your eyes are still blue, right?" She tried to interject a bit of hope but had to double check her facts quick. Yes, Jason's eyes didn't have a single fleck of green to be seen. He'd appreciate that.

"L... look on the bright side, you  _actually_  look like dad's son now."

With a groan, Jason buried his head in his hands once more. Huh. And she'd thought he'd be happy with that knowledge, given how he was more or less already adopted into the family. He might not even mind the transformation in his appearance if it had nothing to do with Hood but it's not like the whole thing wasn't reversible with some good ole dye, right?

* * *

 

Okay. The last file with any information regarding the kid was going up in flames with the others, turning to ashes outside of the abandoned asylum and Slade could in good confidence leave the premises. He went through every archive and filing cabinet until he had them all in his hands. Of course, he had to check the contents to confirm they were about Jason but he couldn't linger on the details they described. 

Deathstroke or not, he wasn't a sadist, he wasn't psychopathic and even without knowing the kid, he'd not want to learn absolutely everything the clown did to him. He hadn't even known there were so many different ways to torture a child that you could write up several pages on it. 

The world - rotten as it was - was better off without that painted freak. 

Slade was on his way back to his safe house and wondering how much effort it would take to throw out all the people who didn't need to be there, when from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a girl trailing him.  _Stephanie_  was his first assumption, given how she was now his miniature shadow or something but there was no blur of blonde enthusiasm cannon-balling into him like he could have expected if it were the Robin girl.

No. He slowed down to let his stalker catch up out of sheer curiosity and soon enough, a teenager cautiously came around to face him. She was fidgeting with her hands, gaze nervously downcast, the way she tried to form words and blocked his path an indicator she wanted an audience with him but why? Slade didn't know who she was or what a fifteen or sixteen-year-old could want from him. 

If he had to guess, he'd say she was Chinese descent, black hair and small stature, brown eyes and all. Not to be culturally appropriating or racist or anything, but she bore a notable resemblance to Rose, who was half Asian herself. 

"Can I help you?" Slade asked, realizing that unless he took the first venture towards conversation then they'd stand here in the street all day, locked in a staring competition.

"Ss.. a - are you Slade Wilson? As the.... stroke of death?"

" _Deathstroke_." He corrected her in a low voice. He didn't really care that she knew his identity, given how it wasn't secret or anything but he'd rather not have the whole street overhear and pay attention to him. Today he would like to be discreet. 

"What do you want?"

"I uh, I am l - looking for Robin." Oh, she was so unsure of herself, especially in speaking that she had to be either extremely shy or an agoraphobe. Or perhaps she found him intimidating. 

"There was... talk that Robin was w - with you -  _Deathstroke_  and I w - wondered if you was knowing where she is?"

"Why are you looking for her?" 

"I - I am her friend. Me and Stephanie have known each other for... years and many years. I must f - find her."

Slade considered it. Okay, the girl knew Robin's identity and he couldn't detect a single sign in her body language that suggested she was lying and in all honesty, he was way too fucking tired to deal with it if she was.

"Whatever." He shrugged, brushing by her.

"Follow me if you want to see your Stephanie."

If the Robin girl was distracted by her visitor then maybe he stood a chance at detaching her from his side.

* * *

 

When Slade got back  _finally_ , he had with him Cassandra Cain and every why in the world lit up in Bruce's head. They came in, Slade directed her down the hallway and proceeded to drown himself in coffee that could not be freshly brewed, given how cold it was in the pot. 

"Did you find everything?" Bruce asked, following him into the kitchen where he stood with the small of his back against the counter, drinking the ancient coffee while he stared blankly at nothing. He hummed a muffled 'yes'. Slade Wilson  _tired_? Bruce hadn't ever thought he would see the day.

"All the files, all the tapes, I burned 'em." He warily explained, straightening from the slump and wiping droplets of drink off his lips with the back of his hand.

Bruce nodded, grim to know those awful things ever existed and what was done to Jason to make them.

"Thank you." 

Slade eyed him oddly when he said that, as if he couldn't take it how it was that Batman would ever thank Deathstroke for a thing. Yeah, well, they were both in disbelief over that.

"... For everything you did. Jason would be dead without you." Bruce continued and shoved Slade further into the realms of discomfort spawned by them having a civil one-sided conversation.

The merc eventually responded with a shrug. "The kid needs whatever help he's given. He's kinda become my responsibility or something. I don't know how, I didn't mean him to."  He finished with a longer gulp at his mug that would ensure he didn't have to go on with the sentence.

"Slade, I have to return to my dimension soon."

"Naturally."

"And I need you to do something for me." Bruce stepped nearer to the man and Slade stiffened at once, naturally perceiving any fast approach as the first sign of an attack but fortunately for Bruce's intact skeleton, he quickly understood otherwise and relaxed his posture again.

"What?" 

"I need you to continue protecting my son. I am  _asking_  you to keep him safe." That was the most genuine request in the silence of a plea that he could say since there was no way he could leave if no one was making sure Arkham or anything of the sort never hurt Jason again. He'd foolishly held onto some hope that his doppelganger would handle the part he signed up for but of course not. If  _Slade_  made you look like a worthless parent then reassess your entire life.

"You're seriously asking  _me_  for a favour, Wayne? I didn't realise we were in that kind of a relationship."

"We're not. I wouldn't be asking you for anything if I didn't have to.  But whether or not you say yes, I know you're going to protect Jason."

"What makes you so sure I'm not fed up with all of his traumas and drama?" 

"Because for one reason or another, you care about him. And you care about your daughter also, so I trust you'll do the right thing."

Slade's gaze narrowed on him, irritated that Bruce knew exactly how he thought in concern to this matter and there didn't have to be any verbal confirmation at all for Bruce to be assured Slade would do as he was asked.

But he went ahead and said it anyway.

"For the record, you didn't have to ask." Slade went about brewing a fresh pot of coffee, busying himself the instant any sign of his compassionate side peaked its head. He was attempting to distract from it. 

"And since we're practically in-laws, I'll even do it for free."

* * *

 

Air-drying his hair after that much-needed dunk in the dye, Jason couldn't help but have Stephanie take up all of his attention the way she lay defeatedly on the floor, straight as a plank with her iPod singing next to her head. She took a shuddering breath and blinked back heavy sadness that threatened to spill over her lashline.

 _"You were everything, everything that I wanted, we were meant to be - supposed to be, but we lost it. And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away, all this time you were pretending -_  
_so much for my happy ending!"_

Okay,  _what_? Jason had been made aware that Rose broke up with Stephanie but he'd expected her to move on to her next stalking victim like the rubber ball she'd proven herself to be. This display was...  _heart_ - _wrenching_. It was so painful, in fact, that Jason was entertaining the idea of begging  _his_  girlfriend to return Stephanie's affections to the best of her ability. 

"I will fucking put you in the dirt!" Rose yelled from the bathroom, visible from the living room Jason and Steph were at. Something shattered when it hit the floor and the shower curtain was torn off its track. Hood and Rose didn't pay heed to the damage, however, not since they were so deep into round-housing the hell out of one another over a matter that Jason couldn't recount.

Was this what gingersnap had felt like? Being able to do nothing while his significant other attacked the doppelganger and vice versa? Jason felt a deeper kinship to the archer. 

Of course, he did love it that neither Slade nor Rose liked Hood one bit. It was all he ever needed in his life to know but this fistfight of theirs was a little bit further than he'd wanted that to go.

Just then, a girl of adorably small physique came timidly in, Jason being the only one to notice her with Stephanie mourning her lost love and the other two breaking the bathroom. It took a second, but he did remember seeing her on 52.  _Cassandra_ , right? What was she here for? 

Jason straightened, about to ask her some questions when she came into Stephanie's peripheral. It was like fucking Jekyll and Hyde how quickly the nutty blonde went from deathly depressed to bounding to her feet with the exclamation,

" _CASSIE-_!" At her characteristically enthusiastic reaction, a pretty smile lit up Cassie's face, reaching her eyes for the moment before Stephanie's arms crashed around her and she took her lips almost by force. WHAT. THE HELL? 

Cassie didn't make like Jason expected her to - run away from the insane girl - but returned the kiss, although with considerably less brutality. Wait - Stephanie had a  _girlfriend_? Apparently so as in her vigorous energy, Steph knocked Cassie over the armrest of the couch and put herself atop the other girl, kissing her with a passion that made Jason wonder if he should give them the room. 

"Cass, where've you been?" Stephanie asked when she could bring herself to break the smooch fest, grinning like a fucking lunatic. 

"Was... busy with the family's matters. But I c - came to look f - for you now that it's... dealt." Cassandra explained while Stephanie still loomed over her, her hands planted on either side of the girl's head.

"Babe, you just  _vanished_. I got so fucking worried and I tried to find you but I couldn't - then before I knew it, I was obsessing over Ravager since she looked a bit like you."  What the fuck? Was that why...? No, that was way too far-fetched, even for Stephanie. Cass was Chinese, Rose was part Cambodian, they didn't really look alike _at all._

"R - really? Steph, that's.... odd."

"I have an outdated coping mechanism." The blonde shrugged before she did once again plant her lips over Cassie's.

Jason really didn't think he should be here any longer. He got off the couch and left them to wherever that make-out session would take them. 

In the kitchen, he found Bruce and Slade talking about something, drinking coffee at the table in a fashion that was nearly  _civil_. He got a look when he pulled out a chair and sat next to the merc, slumping tiredly over, exhaling through his teeth. Damn... or fuck his life, he was drained. He had a feeling he would be for a while, no matter how many hours of shuteye he got in.

"Hood is fighting with Rose." He let them know, head in his hands. Slade's brows rose slightly as he took a sip at his mug, not particularly interested.

"Wayne, you better go save your boy. Rose will murder him." 

"He'll be fine." Bruce didn't care either or then he was at his breaking point with telling Hood to behave. He did deserve every bit of pain that came his way simply for the foolishness of engaging  _Rose_  in a fight. Jason had only done that  _once_  because he learned from his mistakes.

Then there was a scream and loud crashing coming from somewhere in the safe house that compelled Bruce to forget what he said and rise with a sigh. He went to go rescue Hood. 

As he left them, Slade patted Jason on the shoulder, relieved that he wasn't his doppelganger.

"You're a good kid, Jason." 

* * *

 

A few days later and Jason found himself at the tall arched bridge leading out of Gotham, staring at the dark water as it moved in waves. Bruce had gone and _luckily_ , dragged Hood along with him. It wasn't like last time where Jason sobbed into his knees for three nights straight because he wanted Bruce to stay, he felt.... okay with them going back to 52. Maybe because he had some semblance of a family now, which he hadn't before. No Rose, no Roy, Slade or Stephanie, who, for all her weirdness, Jason liked. It didn't hurt as badly when he had something to come back to when all was said and done.

Which lead him to this moment, watching the water with the weight of the Knight's armour resting in his arms. The river looked hungry, the way its angry eyes stared up at him. It felt like Gotham, wicked and thirsting to consume him whole. This fucking city had bled him dry. He didn't have anything more for it to take but it would keep trying if he let it.

"Jay, baby, you gotta hurry it up a bit." Rose told him as she pushed away from the parked car and joined his side by the railing.

"I know, I'm just... thinking."

"About?"

"How much I fucking wanna leave this city." 

"Speed it up a little and we can." Even before Rose suggested it, Jason had known he'd never get better if he remained in Gotham, not since there were enemies and memories around every corner. It was like leaving for Venezuela all over again, the desire to run away and do it fast was overwhelming. Thank god Rose felt the same way.

"You know, those Arkham guards were onto something."

"How so?" She arched a brow, hands tightening on the bar of the railing.

"I want the Arkham Knight dead too."  And he did. Jason wanted that rage-filled monster in him to die more than he'd ever wanted Joker dead. There was Arkham in the name, chaining him to that damned place more than his scars did already. He wanted to get better only he couldn't for as long as the Knight was there to remind him of what made him. Joker caused the Knight, Harley Quinn named him and Deathstroke trained him.

Jason didn't want any of that anymore. He was past it. 

As understanding as she ever was, Rose took the suit from him and without his show of hesitation, dropped it over the edge. Part of him grim, Jason watched the iron and kevlar fall with a splash, relieved when it sank out of sight. It was as if someone closed the book on a nightmare. But it was also saying goodbye to the only thing that kept him afloat once. How fitting that the Knight should sink once his purpose was over, just Jason was no longer drowning with him.

Without letting him linger and regret the choice, Rose took Jason by the hand, her touch enough to reassure him that unlike his alter ego, she wasn't going anywhere.

"We should get going before dad figures out we skipped town. He won't be thrilled." She smiled, kissed him but not before she added a final statement.

"R.I.P the Arkham Knight. Now let's get outta here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sniffffffff* 
> 
> You should know, I watched two hours worth of people eating half-cooked octopus while I tried to write this chapter. I don't know why but I did so let that erase that bitter-sweet feeling in your gut now that it's over.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through another one of these AK stories, I hope this finale didn't disappoint you and as always, please leave me your thoughts, if you would be so kind XD


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